


Machinations of the Mechanical Heart

by Good_Grief



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Characters Experience Different Events Differently, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Eventual Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Exploration in Canon, Friends to Lovers, Future Shiro/Keith, Gladiator Shiro (Voltron), Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Minor Allura/Lance (Voltron), Multiple POV's, Mutual Pining, Not a Sick-Fic, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Past Relationship(s), Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Present-Kerberos Mission, Rated Mature, Season/Series 08 Spoilers, Sexual Content, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Slow Build, Slow Burn, not really a fix it, season 8 continuation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-07-23 19:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16165715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Grief/pseuds/Good_Grief
Summary: Adam’s heart is practical, and Shiro’s seeks the edges of the universe. It drives them together and then it drives them apart. On the fringes there is Keith, until he’s in the center of everything, and then he's not. For a moment there's Curtis, and the precipice is set. Shiro falls apart, but Keith won't let him. For Shiro it's falling before he even knows what love is, what it could be. For Keith it's game, set, and match. It's a rain-check, and it's a promise no one else was there to hear.It’s hard to balance the scales between what you love and who you love, but for Shiro and Keith, they won't get that choice. They will have to make do.





	1. Practicality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While you were looking away, I fell in love with you.

**Machinations of the Mechanical Heart**

A. Practicality

Adam is nothing if not practical. He watches the world with a cool and critical eye, and the world takes care not to pass him by. Adam also knows that a burden shared is a burden halved, so his first relationships he approaches with the concern of somebody who has spent far too much time dissecting the mechanical inner workings of both a machine and a military institution and not enough time thinking about the heart of the matter.

He’s seventeen and in school when he kisses a girl for the first time. Mostly, it just seems like the most normal thing to do. These days nobody really judges you on who you love, so he kisses a boy under the bleachers for good measure. The influx of technology makes it so hard to connect with somebody on a base level that instead of making lists of what you want, it becomes increasingly easy to instead make a list of what you don’t want and flip through the internet pages of self induced acts of non-privacy until something looks okay enough. _She_ parties too hard, _they_ stand out too much, _He,_ well, _he’s_ cute, but he’s a bit of a musclehead. Adam’s already decided he’s going to love someone for their brain. The girl he kisses at seventeen isn’t important. Neither is the boy. They don’t go anywhere.

Adam is nineteen when he officially becomes a cadet at the Galaxy Garrison. He likes the idea that at the garrison, everyone is equal to their skill and their rank and not holden to their backgrounds or personal preferences. It’s not that he has a rough background, in fact, he’s pretty much decidedly normal. He’s in the top half of his classes, he’s able to put together and take apart a vintage 2039 mustang (the best year) and modify it to run on recycled-eco fuel, he’s even able to wear a medium (the most average) sized cadet jacket. He knows that he doesn’t exactly stand out, act out, or even have a particular craving to feel equal and validated in all the things he does. However, sitting in a noisy mess hall full of bright young minds and contemplating the future of his home planet, it certainly feels nice that he, like everyone there, has everything ahead of him if he’s willing to act on it. It’s the idea he likes.

He’s the same age when he approaches Shiro. Shiro it seems, applies to enough of his ideals that he only makes one minor miscalculation. He forgets to account for the size of Shiro’s heart, and the weight-bearing capacity of the of the large surface he is about to fall upon.

It starts slow, it starts with… Shiro.

Cadet Shirogane is a really nice guy. He’s always helping people with anything they ask and as Adam watches him help a buddy in the flight simulator stick the landing, watches him help with another cadet’s paper in introductory astrophysics, oblige the teachers and coaches and officers in being the _best example we have,_ he can’t help but wonder if Shiro keeps anything around for himself. So, at approximately 20:00 hours, when he finds Shiro alone at a table with a computer in the library, he takes a chance and decides to find out.

“Hi there, is this spot taken?” Adam asks, nobody has been sitting in it for the last hour he’s been there, but being polite never hurt anyone.

“Oh, no, go ahead,” Shiro says, “don’t mind me.” His crooked smile is infectious, and Adam feels an answering smile on his face.

Adam unpacks a small tablet and puts his books on the table with a deliberate slowness. He digs out a pen and pushes his glasses back up his nose, they’re always sliding down when he rummages through his backpack. He even pulls out a notebook, covered in small doodles of the constellations.

“Well, that's traditional,” Shiro remarks. Adam’s eyes flicker over to where Shiro has a fancy tablet and a wireless detachable, well, _everything_ set up. “Oh, sorry I didn’t mean anything by it. I just meant-”

“It’s okay,” Adam cuts him off, “It’s fine, it’s just that I kind of like that it’s outdated. I mean, I like working with my hands, so it’s the next best thing?” Just like that, it’s a little awkward, like they both aren’t sure what to say. Adam valiantly barges on anyway, “I’m Adam.”

“Takashi Shirogane,” It’s a reflex reply. “Please, call me Shiro... Is that cancer on your book?”

“Cancer?” Adam guesses he means the stars on his notebook, glancing down at the cartoonish crab and the note about the stars. He pretends to be slightly confused.

“Oh, I mean the stars, on your book, the constellations,” Shiro glances up to see Adam smirking and raising his eyebrow. Shiro huffs a little, glancing away. “Oh, you know what I meant.”

Adam’s smirk softens into a real, if a little discreet smile. “It’s nice to meet you Shiro.”

 

Just like that, Adam finds himself seeking out Shiro’s company more and more. It’s almost unconscious at first. The warm and curious feeling he gets from being in Shiro’s presence turns to a flutter of excitement and nerves and it’s getting warmer. A few casual library study meetups turn into eating in each other’s company at lunch. The cogs and wheels in Adam's heart start turning, slowly, with all the bells and whistles of an old fashioned steam engine and not the sleek high tech machine that he imagines is the heart in Shiro’s chest.

The sixty-fifth time that they find some time just for themselves it’s on the roof of the observatory in the fall. They climb the industrial ladder in the after hours, a risk Adam has determined as calculated enough to take the chance. The teachers aren’t likely to look too much at Adam’s bundle of clothes under his sheets during lights-out as they barely glance his way. He’s not been enough trouble yet to be associated with a second glance. Shiro has discovered that he has a love of watching Adam stargaze and Adam has discovered that he likes describing the constellations and the myths behind them.

“What do you dream about Adam?” Shiro breaks up a comfortable silence to ask, his eyes close, it’s now the early hours of the morning and even if the next day is the weekend, the Garrison has them running ragged with far too many classes and too many hours in the flight simulator.

“Well,” Adam sighs, he closes his eyes too. “It’s a bit silly, but as much as I’d love to go to the stars or be an ace pilot, it’s not that practical. I’m good, but I’m part of a team good, not solo good. I think I’d like to be part of something, you know? Like the Avengers or something but a group of pilots.”

“Adam,”

“Yes Shiro?” and both of their eyes are open now.

All of the words he could say seem to hang in the spaces of Adam’s heart. Nobody has the right to look so beautiful with only a touch of starlight to illuminate their face. “That’s a really nerdy and really old reference,” he says, but his eyes crinkle in the corners.

“Gee thanks,” Adam rolls his eyes. “If you didn’t know, I’m both really nerdy and kind of old.”

“Kind of old at twenty?”

Adam chooses to both politely and pointedly ignore that statement.

“Adam.”

“Yes Shiro?” This time there is a touch of exasperation to go with it this time.

Shiro’s eyes are closed again. “I’d be on your team, if you wanted.”

In the time hanging between the statement, Adam knows. He knows that Shiro is too good to fly in a team, and no way is the Garrison giving up their star pilot to Adam’s small dream. In the soft glow of the night sky though, he can imagine it. He can imagine until the morning that maybe, he’ll be part of a group that will defend earth and find the secrets to life and life in the vastness of the space of the universe. Adam can imagine that Shiro is there, in his team and on his side.

So instead of speaking, he closes his own eyes and reaches out with his fingers until they are touching Shiro’s fingers and allows his reply to hang in the place that all the words he’ll never say write their own story. By the end, they’ll outweigh the words he does say, and he’ll still not find it in his heart to regret this small moment. In this moment, they hold hands under the night sky and Adam begins to fall.

In the days and weeks and months that follow, Adam begins to make his own list. It’s all the things he wants in a relationship. He wants somebody dependable, and mature, somebody that can fill the spaces in between with practicality, because Adam is not a romantic. That doesn't seem to stop him from handwriting the word Shiro at the end of his list. It’s not until another few months that he decides to do something about it.

Shiro, with his extra-large cadet jacket -those shoulders fill it out impeccably- comes to sit across from Adam in what will be the hundred and second encounter that is just the two of them. “Hey Shiro?”

“Yes Adam?”

Adam knows that Shiro is kind of shy about his admirers, that he hasn’t dated a whole lot and that he’s most likely to give him the speech about just being friends and not wanting to complicated their relationship.

“I like you. As in I want to go out with you.”

A blush blooms across Shiro’s face, it starts across the bridge of his nose and extends until even the tips of his ears are rosy. “Oh,” He says.

It’s a sound he knew was coming, but he didn’t expect it to hurt so much. His heart feels like it stutters and time slows down and he didn’t realize he was holding his heart in between his palms and offering it to this beautiful man until he feels like Shiro won’t reach out and take it.

“Okay.”

It sounds so final, and Adams trying desperately to figure out how to bandage up the mess in his chest. Then the momentary doubt creeps up and it’s a flicker of hope. _Okay, what?_

Shiro still hasn’t stopped blushing and that small sardonic twist is back on Adam’s lips. He’s ready, he thinks, they can just be friends and that’s ok.

“It’s okay Shiro, we could always just be friends.” Adam decides to let him down easy.

“Best friends?”

“With our own secret handshake and everything Shiro,” and it hurts to say that.

“I’m sorry Adam, this won’t change anything right? I like how we are right now,” Shiro’s blush is fading but he still won’t quite look Adam in the eye.

“Of course nothing will change,” Adam agrees, “I promise.”

So the hand holding on the roof continues and it breaks Adam’s heart just a little every time, and when Shiro eats lunch with just Adam and his notepad Adam can almost pretend that they’re together and like he promised, nothing changes. Until it does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am looking for a beta reader if somebody would like to get into editing this bad-boy. 
> 
> I finished watching season seven the day it came out, and following it, decided to start the whole show over again and I'm almost back at season seven again. I'm not mad about Adam or his lack of screen time. I love the show and respect the decisions made in said season. I've been the person in Shiro's shoes, so many times, for so many reasons, and I've once been the person in Adams shoes (but we won't get into that kind of heartbreak). I'm envious of Shiro's arm and can't wait till I can replace the non functioning parts of myself with synthetic cybernetic pieces. It might show. 
> 
> That said, I’d love to hear from you, so drop me a line (of text).


	2. Orion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize what it meant to me, until so much later.

B. Orion

 

Shiro is the poster boy for the Galaxy Garrison. He has good grades, social standing and affluence, his Japanese heritage gives them the claim to diversity. As if where you come from now means anything. Most people still use the old words for the lands in which they were born, but the world banded together long ago to simply be the earth. It became much easier to band together when the water shortages hit and the price of growing crops in the desert or producing meat for consumption became unsustainable, when housing shortages and climate change and all of the other things happened that would make the world turn its eyes toward space as an allied planet with the same goals. Technology was the driving force on earth and it still is. Shiro can’t help but notice all the students, himself included, traveling along with their holo-tablets and wireless earbuds and QT tech products (Quick-Tech), never too far away from a source of blue light. Until he meets Adam. 

Adam keeps a notepad and writes everything that’s private by hand instead of blasting it into the vestigial areas of space via the internet. Sometimes in class Adam will even slip him notes which make Shiro blush because they’re very cute, and frown, because he’s not sure this is what friends do. 

He has other friends than Adam of course. Shiro has Matt Holt, tech junkie and all-around-nerd, to compare Adam too. For one, Shiro thinks, Matt would never slip him paper notes in class that include cute cartoons of Cassiopeia and the Summer Triangle. In general, he tries not to worry about it, and he succeeds on account of being so busy that he barely has time to see Adam between classes and homework and all those extra hours he booked in the simulator. (He’s managed to get the top score in his year but it’s not effortless like many of his peers think) Then, though, at lunch, Adam drops the bomb, and later when he’s describing all of this confusing stuff to Matt, Shiro wonders how dense the matter in his brain would have to be to not have predicted this. 

“So, you guys just sneak out to watch the stars, and hang on, let me get this right-  _ hold hands? _ ” Matt’s eyebrows are shooting up into his hairline. 

Shiro’s blush might as well be permanently affixed to his face, if only because that way nobody would be able to tell if it was a blush or his face. “I mean, we don’t ask or acknowledge it, we just sort of, hold hands I guess.” 

“Really? I mean, I get the appeal of hand holding, but I don’t know Shiro…” Matt trails off, his head tilting slightly to the right. “I’ve hung out with you guys a few times and while it’s absolutely clear the guy only has eyes for you, I mean I am positive I’m not even a blip on his radar, do you not think he’s sort of, well, plain?” 

“What? Matt that’s rude, be nice,” Shiro chides, “besides, he’s pretty cute, and he is always drawing these little drawings of the constellations and sending me notes about it. He’s kinda a technophobe, which I mean, doesn’t even make sense considering we’re at the Galaxy Garrison. No, I don’t think he’s plain.” 

“Uh huh,” and there it is, Matt’s big and lopsided smile. “Sure you don’t like him as more than a friend. Look Shiro, I know you guys decided to just be friends a while ago, but I’m telling you, pretty cute is not how I describe you to other people.” 

Shiro though, is done with this conversation at the moment, and Matt knows it. “Uh huh, maybe I should though. -meet my friend Shiro, he’s  _ pretty cute, _ ” Shiro elbows Matt in the side but he can’t help but recall the conversation later that night, and as one night turns to another, that conversation lingers as he beats the best high score in the next years’ group of students. It lingers all the way through the first doctor’s appointment and the next doctor's’ appointment, and the next seven doctor’s appointment. It sneaks up on him a few years later when the word of the doctors is still uncertain and having a warm  _ pretty cute  _ body to hold begins to hold an appeal all it’s own. 

 

To Adam’s credit, after that one day, he’s never brought up that he likes Shiro again. So when Shiro finds that small candle of affection within himself for Adam, he realizes just how brave Adam was to tell him and then to go back to being friends without a word to him. Brave becomes a word that he aquaits with Adam. Shiro fails to tell him that maybe they should go out five times out of six. It takes him ‘third time’s a charm’ twice before he gets it right, and in the end he thinks he could have done better than echo the lingering conversation between him and Matt.

“So, you’re pretty cute Adam, do you want to go out sometime?” His voice echos out to the night sky where they snuck out once more to gaze at the stars. 

“What’s this about? We’re friends Shiro, did somebody put you up to this?” 

“Uh,” Shiro fumbles, because he was hoping for something along the lines of  _ Okay.  _ “No, I mean, Matt and I had the conversation about it, God-” he stumbles, “I mean about me asking you out, not me asking Matt- wouldn’t that be weird?! I mean, we talked about it, like a good while ago and now I was just thinking it would be nice to go out, and we’re not cadets anymore, so I guess we don’t have to worry about Iverson… or curfew, I’m sorry, you are so, so brave, and I’m going to stop talking now.” 

Shiro closes his eyes and tries not to imagine that he’s drowning, that all of this backfired spectacularly and now they have to try and figure out how to be friends after whatever it was that came out of Shiro’s big fat mouth. 

“Brave, huh?” Adam wonders, his eyes are open. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me.”

“You are, don’t doubt yourself Adam,” Shiro says and it’s like a refex to reassure him. 

“Okay,” Adam says, chuckling to himself and trying to figure out what led here, his loose curls bob and his eyes sparkle with laughter and Shiro wonders who the hell could have thought him plain. 

“Okay, what?” And Shiro has no idea how long Adam has wanted an answer to that himself. 

“Okay, we can go out. We can try anyway. I can’t make any promises.” Shiro admires both his bravery and his practicality. It’s everything he could ask for in an answer to what they are now and what they could be, and for a moment, the two men lay under the blanket of stars and the quiet of a world largely asleep, and for that moment, everything is perfect.

 

They pick a small bar in a nearby town and shoot some pool even though they’re both abysmal at it. They drink and laugh and let the weight of the world fall off their shoulders for a night. Adam sighs as he sinks the eight ball on the third play and Shiro chuckles and claims that winning by default is hardly winning at all. All in all though, the night is unseasonably warm, and the bar is smokey. The two men find themselves shrugging their jackets off and wandering outside to get some air. 

“So, what do you think you’re going to do now?” Adam asks, curious. 

“Take us back to the Garrison where we can pretend you won’t be mildly hungover tomorrow?” and it sounds like a question even to Shiro. 

“No,” Adam smiles, there’s a lilt of drunken enthusiasm in his voice. “I meant, like, I think I’m going to be a flight instructor. Those who can’t do, teach, right?” 

“Oh, you know you are really good-” 

“Not like you,” Adam shakes his head. Shiro wonders if he’s about to walk headfirst into their first major fight, but there’s a redirect there, waiting for him to take it. “So are they going to send you _to_ _infinity and beyond?_ ” 

“Such an old school nerd!” Shiro exclaims but the mood turns somber. “I’m waiting for medical clearance to confirm if I can do more than fly on earth, or even more than the sim at this point.” 

“What?” 

“I’m sure it’s nothing, they just want to be really sure, you know? It makes sense, I’m positive Iverson makes them vet the hell out of everyone, protocol right?” but it sounds a bit hollow even to Shiro. “Then there’s the training period and I need more time in the anti-G chamber and there has to be a mission in the first place. Right now though, the Garrison asked me to do some recruiting. Just going around to some of the schools, seeing if there are some talented kids, telling them how great the Garrison is. You know.” 

Adam’s tipsy enough that he only really wants to process half of that at the moment, it’s just, well,  _ a lot _ . “Wow, poster boy for real.” 

“It’s my dream to go to the far reaches of space, maybe discover evidence of life. I just want to see what’s out there for us. What’s really out there.” 

“Somewhere between Cancer and Leo?” 

“Exactly,” Shiro nods, his jaw is set and firm but his eyes are dancing wickedly in the glow of the porch lights. He’s still the most beautiful creature Adam could imagine, and Adam can’t help but slip closer to him, till they are standing chest to chest, although Shiro is tall enough that Adam’s eyes need to look up to see his face. “Can I kiss you?” slips out of Adam’s mouth before he can stop it, and he’s reaching out and he’s halfway there already. 

“Yes,” and by the time Shiro breathes the words, his breath ghosts over Adams lips and it turns into a kiss. A slow kiss, a light brush of lips on his and an offering for more if he wants it. Shiro wants it. His hands slide up to hold onto Adams more delicate shoulders and he presses back just a little harder, a touch of tongues, and lets his mouth fall open as the kiss turns heated. It feels like it’s been a long time coming. There is no fireworks, no spark, no surge of heat like he’s imagined it could be like. But there is warmth, there is comfort, and that is so very, very Adam. So very brave, so dependable, with a heart like clockwork. 

“Come back to my place?” Shiro whispers against Adams ear. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want, we can just sleep.” 

“Okay,” Adam whispers, and it’s like their word.  _ Okay, okay  _ it echos. Shiro feels like everything is going to be alright. They go back to the Garrison and Adam goes with Shiro to his room instead of to his. Shiro’s roommate is Matt, but he’s long since holed up in his bedroom with earphones so he doesn’t come out. (He knew they were going out tonight and he is fully prepared to bother Shiro about the details of it in the morning.” 

Adam’s no longer tipsy by the time they make it back to Shiro’s room. Instead he’s wholeheartedly decided. He has his hands all over Shiro’s flawless chest, and there goes Shiro’s shirt and then Adam’s shirt, and  _ shit, that’s gonna leave a mark,  _ but it all feels too good to care. There’s hands and teeth and mouths everywhere, and they haven’t even made it to the bed yet.” 

“Fuck, you feel so good,” and Shiro’s never heard Adam swear, but he wants to make him curse and soon he’s on his knees, peppering kisses to the exposed points of Adams hips, trying to see if he can make him say-

“Please,” and on anybody else, the noise might sound like an outright whine, but Adam is far to proud and noble for it to be anything other than a breathless gasp. A full desire, for Shiro, for what Shiro can do for him. 

“Yeah, baby? Please what?” and Shiro’s mouth is back at his throat, his tongue is teasing the edge of Adam’s ear. “What do you want?” 

Adams eyes are full of intensity and his skin is flushed and pink and yet, still so very decisive he calls out, “You! Oh god, I want you Shiro,” 

Shiro grins and puts his hands on either side of the door  to brace himself as he once again slides to his knees, eyes full of amusement that darkens to lust as he reaches for the fly on Adams jeans. 

“Okay,” he says, and it feels amazing to be wanted, “I’m yours.”  

 

The morning brings with it the rude awakening that is not enough sleep but Shiro is used to sleepless nights studying, although he can admit that the morning after studying does not bring him the same kind of satisfied feeling. It curls low in his belly and eases the lines of tension out of his shoulders while he makes a pot of the strongest coffee he can stomach. He knows Adam likes cream and sugar, so he puts it out on the counter while he gets to work. Shiro closes his eyes and all he can see is Adam, flushed and half awake as he tells Shiro to get on making the coffee while he finds his clothes. 

Unfortunately Matt has also taken this moment to decide that he needs breakfast and spots Shiro at the coffee maker in nothing but his boxers, not by itself unusual, but  _ is that a hickey on his chest?  _ He questions as Shiro turns around to face him. Shiro’s face blushes, although he quickly tells himself that a lovely night that ends in somebody’s arms in a nice warm bed is nothing to be ashamed of. 

“So how was your night?” Matt smirks. 

“Hey, Shiro - is the coffee ready?” Adam asks as he makes his way into the kitchen. “Oh, hi there Matt.” 

There is nothing shy about the way Adam lifts one of the coffee cups from Shiro’s hands, leaving him standing dumbstruck as he pours a healthy amount of cream and very little sugar into the cup, reaching for a spoon in the drawer and looking completely comfortable. Brave is a word that Shiro keeps associating with Adam, and he thinks he would feel shy about drinking coffee in front of Adam’s roommate in the same situation. There is no way that Adam didn’t hear Matt ask him how his night was, he’s just too polite and too poised to address it. 

Adam is the first one to break the silence, Matt still just smirking with his brow lifted inquisitively. “For the record it was a lovely night,” he smiles, throws his own small smirk at Matt, leans over to kiss Shiro on the corner of his lips and raises the coffee as if in cheers. “I’ll return this later, gotta run,” and with that salute, he walks out of the apartment, no hurry in his walk and slowly sipping his coffee, Shiro knows that he feels things beneath that cool veneer, knows better than anybody really, but shame isn’t something that Adam can carry convincingly. 

Matt cackles with laughter as Shiro is still staring at the door, coffee in hand and boxers slung low on his hips. He’s far from the poster child image now, dumbstruck by the boldness of his friend-turned-lover? Boyfriend? What should he call his relationship? 

“That good, huh?” Matt has little beads of tears in the corners of his eyes from laughing too hard. “So did you go all the way there with loverboy?” 

That seems to snap Shiro out of it and he glares at Matt, but all he sees is concern from his friend. He knows he can’t complain that they’re going too fast because it really feels like it’s been a long time coming. Shiro lets a small, quiet smile form on his face, Matt means well, he’s sure. “Naw,” he teases. “More like halfway… eh, most of the way.” 

“Oh good, I was worried I was too late to sit you down and tell you about safe sexual practices,” Shiro wishes Matt wasn’t so very embarrassing. “Well, I don’t think I need to tell you about the male fertility suppressant, since I don’t think Adam is a girl and therefore no babies… but you know, you should still always use condoms and also a lubricant. And if you’re going to use silicone condoms…” Shiro is trying to bury his head in his arms. “What?” Matt asks, indignant, even if he knows perfectly well what he’s doing. “Here I am, imparting my glorious wisdom, you should be grateful miscreant. I don’t do this for just everyone. Just you.” 

“I feel so special,” it’s said with heavy sarcasm, but Shiro kind of means it. He doesn’t have the kind of family that would be comfortable talking about sex like Matt is. Impartially his brain wonders if Matt has just taken far too many biology classes to be bothered anymore. 

“Man though, he just like told me off and kissed you and walked down the hallway like he owns it, while stealing my favourite coffee mug. You better get that back, you hear?” Matt lets out a low whistle of appreciation. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I know what you see in him. ” 

“Oh? Well, he’s mine,” Shiro lifts his head, taking a sip of that bitter bitter coffee. His expression isn’t jealous. 

Matt laughs again. “Oh yes, well you can keep him, I’m good, and we are going to be late if we don’t hurry. Think the collar on your coat is high enough to hide the monster hickey on the left side-my left, there it is” 

“Shit, well. I hope so.” 

“You and me both, I don’t need that kind of details about your love life. Also we need to go or we’re going to be late.” They end up being late to the group simulator time Adam had graciously booked so early in the morning, but Shiro has never been late in his life so nobody but Adam looks twice at his flimsy excuse. Adam smiles, but he doesn't say anything. Two days later he returns the coffee mug, and it’s full of scotch mints.

 


	3. Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had everything, but it was like trying to hold the entire desert in my outstretched, upturned hands.

C. Honesty

 

The progression of their relationship has Adam feeling like the floor got swept up underneath him. He had of course examined all the pros and cons of love in a neat bullet-point form list, but nothing compares to the real thing. Shiro strong and soft at the same time, but the quality that hits Adam the hardest is the way he wears his heart on his sleeve. When they’ve been together for six months, Adam draws Shiro a card with Pisces on it and Shiro’s whole face lights up visibly. They’re both busy as Adam starts teaching and Shiro’s reputation takes him out to spread the glory of the Galaxy Garrison, and as a astro-pilot they let him take lots of missions. He laughs and calls the missions ‘local’ but he speaks about being  _ out there  _ with Matt, and Matt’s father Sam Holt, he’s making a difference he says. He’s a natural at public relations and Adam is only a little jealous that flying, and being an all round people-person comes to Shiro with no effort.

Matt has at least stopped raising his eyebrows when Adam is making his morning coffee in their quarters, and is halfway to just telling Adam to move in.

He starts to be pretty good friends with Matt too, and they both take delight in ribbing their Ace Cadet Super-hero Shiro, who has gone on to set simulation records the likes nobody has ever seen. Watching him pilot any of the crafts on and off base is a treat, now that the doctors have decided to give Iverson his clearance papers. They seem to have figured out what the problem is, but Shiro is notoriously tight lipped about it to Adam, and even to Matt, Adam notices. The bright medical bracelet that adorns his wrist lights up and beeps some kind of warning occasionally, but it’s not a cause for concern. 

It’s slow, but six months becomes a year and Shiro’s hours in the gym start to increase. He’s been a trained martial artist his whole life but he drops most of his regular duties to spend hours in the gym, hours in the zero G chamber and hours on the practice mat.

Watching Shiro spar with some of the other pilots that are particularly skilled is amazing. They can all fight to some extent, because at their core, space exploration aside, they are military and they are trained like military. Mostly though, weapons and basic physical self-defense is what the average personnel will have. Shiro though, has mixed martial arts training and skill that seems to come from both a dedication to the gym and a real love of being able to do something correctly. Adam asks about it one day, noticing the increase of physical activity for two obvious reasons, the amount of time Adam isn’t spending with Shiro and the hulking mass of muscle under his fingers as he kisses him and runs his hands down his sides. Shiro keeps brushing him off as just needing to be really in shape  _ just in case,  _ which is a non-answer if Adam’s ever heard one.  _ In case of what?  _ Is what he wants to ask, but he doesn’t.

Instead he asks Shiro to move into quarters with him. He’s already got his roommate to agree to switch out to another room to allow for it. They’ve been official for a year when Shiro says yes and Adam just lets all of the time in the gym and Shiro being so busy just slide onto the back-burner. After all, every night he has Shiro in his arms and it’s  _ okay,  _ as long as he can just hold on to him. He leaves for a whole month on an expedition, or test run of of one of their ships, and Adam spends the whole time pretending Shiro doesn’t exist if only so he can’t imagine what could go wrong out there. When he comes back he’s still hitting the gym as hard as ever and he always seems so busy.

After that though, Shiro comes home one night incredibly excited about a recruiting project and just seeing him so impassioned makes Adam realize how far in love he’s fallen with this man. The nuances of his body language, his arms waving-

“You should have seen these kids, all smirking and sure of themselves, failing hard anyway, and then out of nowhere this other kid, who is a total mess,” Adam is glad that he is remembering to breathe in between all the words. He even sits down on the couch as he’s finished pacing around the room. He holds Adam’s hand and continues.“I mean, total mess, he stole my car-can you believe that?” and at this Adam is kind of alarmed. “But he’s got such spunk, it’s ok, the car’s fine. Anyway, so he gets up in the simulator and the snotty kids are just looking at him like he’s trash, whining about how the machine is probably broken. -But this kid, as soon as he’s in the sim, everything just falls away and he can just fly. Like it’s effortless, like everything about him is a disaster but he flies like he has all the time in the world, but he’s still going to be quick about it.”

“Shiro,” Adam replies, “that’s how it is for all of us when we watch you fly.”

“Really?” His eyes are wide, and Adam can’t believe he doesn’t know how graceful and majestic he looks when he takes to the sky. Can hardly believe that he hasn’t noticed his fanclub all starry-eyed when he steps into the sim.

Adam almost takes pity on him, “Shiro, you fly like the whole galaxy, the universe is at your fingertips with a thought. You look like you’re at home and at peace and sometimes I even worry that you’re not going to come back.”

“Of course I’ll come back, what do you mean? Like I’ll disappear?”

“Just so, I imagine you’ll be flying and flying and you’ll just keep going forever, off into space where I can no longer see you or find you. But you’ll just keep going, because the stars are what you love.”

“I love you too though,” Shiro whispers, “I’d come back for you.”

“I know, it’s okay, the stars are your first love, I know that.” Adam leans toward Shiro to press his forehead against Shiro’s and it’s wonderfully intimate. They’re sitting together on their shared couch in their shared quarters, and isn’t that wonderful too. “I love you too though.”

“To the moon and back?” Shiro asks playfully.

Adam tries to contain a snort. “Weren’t you just there? Like last month?”

“Phobos,” Shiro smiles. “And it’s not our moon.”

The quiet intimacy turns to kisses and whispers and clothing to be slipped to the floor as they find each other first on the couch, and then upon realizing they are really both too big to fit, they move to the bedroom where the rest of the clothes are lost. The kisses this time are unhurried and slow and the whispers are sweet as sugar.

“Let me make love to you,” Adam has fallen so hard for this beautiful man, he loves those smoke grey eyes, clouded with the fever of the moment. He loves his large capable hands and he loves how Shiro falls apart at his touch, at his word, he loves him for everything he is in this moment.

“Yes, please Adam,” Shiro pants and seethes. His own hands are already sliding down Adam’s back as Adam hovers over him. He pulls Adam’s hips to his, small noises escaping his throat. “Please, make love to me,” And his voice is wavering as he’s coming apart at the seams and Adam is the one responsible.

Another kiss, hard and hot, “You are so beautiful Shiro, you are flawless and wow, look at you.” Adam loves how Shiro, so perfectly in control and decisive usually, is flustered and needy and content to let Adam worship him. “You have beautiful hands,” and he’s kissing Shiro’s index and middle finger, and then he’s wrapping his tongue around them, and then he’s closing his lips on them and Shiro is looking on enraptured, because he knows exactly what those lips and tongue can feel like, he can imagine the slight, dull drag of teeth and he’s lifting his hips as much as he can. He wants to feel Adam, he wants Adam to feel him, and he doesn’t know which feeling is going to win.

Adams hands are holding his hips still and his smile is genuine and teasing. “Here Shiro, let me get that for you.” Shiro’s head is falling back and he’s letting out a moan of desire and satisfaction as Adam -finally- reaches his hand down, lower, lower. Shiro’s already got one hand opening the bedside table where they keep the condoms, the lube, all of the good stuff. “Yeah,” Adam almosts laughs, but he’s too worked up for it to be more than a breathy moan. “We’re gonna need that.”

  
  


They are lying in a sweaty heap, knowing they’ll have to clean up but unwilling to do so at the moment. Shiro’s eyes are glazed and Adam is contemplating how deeply in love he is and it scares the hell out of him. All the things that could go wrong, and what if it’s just him and Shiro isn’t as deeply invested in this as Adam. It’s the wrong time to be thinking about it, and they’re both too exhausted to discuss it. So if a few salty tears find themselves silently streaming down onto Shiro’s chest, Adam pretends they don’t.

“Shiro?”

“Yes Adam?”

_ I feel like i’m losing you,  _ he thinks,  _ you’re away all the time, and we just made love, and God that’s not the right thing to say.  _ “I love you so much that it scares me sometimes.”

Adam feels and it's like a tug on the belts and pulleys winding in his heart, and Shiro could say any number of things, he could say that they would be together forever and Shiro is sure of it. He could say that they could run away together. Adam imagines Shiro saying how much he loves Adam and how that could never be true. All of those things would make him feel like he was crazy to think about how Shiro might be pulling away from him.

Instead the words that come out of Shiro’s mouth scare the hell out of him, “I need to tell you something.”

Shiro has Adam’s full attention at that, he’s staring at Shiro’s relaxed face and closed eyes and desperately trying not to imagine what might be the next words out of his mouth.

“My dream is to see the edges of the our solar system, the galaxy, and I want to, but the Doctor says I need to go sooner rather than later, that by the time a mission gets sanctioned and comes up and the preparation period is over, I may only get so many chances to go. She says I have less than ten years to fly, and that’s maximum. As an astro-pilot, I have an expiry date.”

“Is it safe for you to even fly now? What’s wrong with you?” It’s almost worse than Adam could imagine, he thought Shiro was maybe leaving him, maybe cheating on him. Not having his dream stolen by things beyond his control.

Shiro’s eyes are still closed, and maybe that’s how he’s facing this situation Adam realizes, with his eyes closed. Adam takes a leaf out of his book and puts his glasses on the nightstand, letting his body roll beside Shiro and closing his eyes. “It’s nerve and muscle degeneration, it started in my left hand and has moved up the arm. It’s got a long stupid name and it’s not curable.” He's looking away and Adam realizes that there is no way Shiro, meticulous and regimented as he can be about his workout routine, has no idea what it's called. He just doesn't want Adam pouring over texts and trying to find out what is wrong with him... "I don't want your pity Adam," Shiro's voice is so small, barely a whisper. 

“Does it hurt?”

“All the time,” he sighs. “The damaged nerves feel like pins and needles, especially if I stop moving it. My hand usually feels cold, and if I leave it resting too long, those pins and needles also take on an icy quality. I’m scared that if I don’t keep my body in perfect shape then it’s going to start to show. I have to work twice as hard just in a struggle not to lose the muscle that’s there.”

“Is there anything the doctors can do about it? I mean, we have all sorts of advances-especially medical, you’re at the Galaxy Garrison, I can’t accept they’d tell you no if you asked for things like medical body mods.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t, but there isn’t anything to do that’s not too risky, what if the shock of removing the arm causes it to flare in another part of my body, the pain may not go away as the nerves themselves are damaged and when they’re gone, phantom pain is a concern. No, they gave me some cocktails of THC oil and lyrica and other painkillers that ‘may’ work.” Adam is catching a glimpse of the parts that Shiro doesn’t want to talk about and he can’t blame him, not totally sure he understands, but clearly Shiro is sick and taking it more lightly than Adam thinks he would.

“Shouldn’t you be more upset?” Adam asks, he feels like he would.

“About what? It’s out of my control. I can’t control the injury or what it will do to me,” and Adam is sure admitting that loss of control is unbelievably difficult for Shiro. “I can control my reaction to it though, I can exercise relentlessly and eat with discrimination. I can choose to be upset about it, and trust me I was, I’ve had time to be upset about it, but I don’t have time for it anymore. I’m not rolling over, but I refuse to let the pity or the pain be a way of life, I choose to accept that it’s happening and I won’t waste my precious time when I’m able to do things for myself in self pity or just being upset about it. Instead I’m doing everything I can do be better longer.”

Adam thinks it’s hard not to feel upset for him, but this long, and probably practiced speech makes him retract his pity, because Shiro clearly is not looking for his pity.

“Thank you for being honest with me,” and then because it needs to be said. “Want to clean up and go to bed?”

“Yes, that sounds perfect.”

“Oh, and Shiro,” Adam fixes him with a stare, no pity he thinks. “Next time, just tell me what’s going on, and on Tuesdays I declare a day of rest from the gym. Recovery time is important too.”

It must have been very hard on Shiro to say all of that, because he doesn’t argue, instead all he gets in reply is “Okay,” and that’s how he knows they’re gonna be alright.

  
  


The next day Shiro is still going on about the wild child he found at some school in the boonies and Adam can only sigh, he half expected the kid wouldn't show up “It sounds like he’s got talent. If he knows what is good for him, he’ll join. I’m sure your recruitment speech was spot on, Mr. Hero.”

“Oh god, you and Matt are villains, you have got to stop calling me that.”

“What? Shiro the Hero?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, but he’s laughing too, too amused to really be annoyed.

“What do you propose I should use instead Mr. Superman?” Adam comes over to sit beside Shiro on their small pristine couch, he kisses his cheek, and the tip of his nose, and his forehead. Shiro lets out a huff, but Adam knows sees the blush rising and knows that it’s all for show.

“Takashi,” Shiro says, his eyes shining, and the laughter seems to have been replaced by warmth, love. Adam has been here, hopelessly laying on the surface, but there it is, that heart-on-his-sleeve, hell, it’s his heart right in the lines of his face. In the stress lines and laugh lines, there is is, it’s love, and Adam’s heart is bursting. Adam’s heart is beating so hard in his chest he thinks Shiro can feel it from here. Before he can give it conscious thought, his left hand is tangled in Shiro’s dark hair, his other hand caressing the hard line of his jaw.

“Marry me,” and that’s certainly not what he means to say, but he’s in far too deep and Adam has never taken back a single word he’s said.

“What?”

He may have to clarify however, “Not right now, it’s just, one day, I’d like to think it’s a possibility for us.” Adam’s mind is already turning, mapping out what he wants out of this, they met, he fell in love, and then finally Shiro decided to follow him into falling too. Now they are so young with their whole lives ahead of them, Adam will teach and fly in a team when needed, he’ll work nine-to-fives and Shiro will fly a little if they let him, but in the end he’ll alway comes home to Adam. He will come home to where Adam and his unconditional love and mechanical, consistent and carefully considered heart live. Adam calculates and weighs what their lives and love will cost him and it’s too wonderful a dream to put a price on it.

“One day, of course Adam,” Shiro says, his smile has quieted and his expression is older and wiser that Adam is used to seeing on his face. “I love you.”

“I love you too Takashi,” he says, because it’s the truth.

It remains the truth the next morning when Shiro accidentally burns the bagel he made for breakfast and it’s the truth next week when Adam borrows a kiss for luck as Adam has to present a group flight plan practice compilation to Iverson and he’s really nervous. It’s the truth when Shiro takes that kiss back as he gets called into Iverson’s office to talk about his newest Cadet recruit, the one Shiro has a hand in finding.

He still loves Shiro when he meets Keith for the first time and his eyebrows raise, because this kid stole Shiro’s vehicle, may have even punched another cadet, but here Shiro is, vouching for his character. In the middle of the night, trying to get sleep while Shiro shakes and sweats and moans and clutches his arm to his chest, he loves him. In the morning, when Shiro’s hand trembles and gives out and the coffee hits the snow white carpet and Shiro’s desperately apologizing, but he doesn’t have the dexterity to pick up the pieces without swearing up a storm and Adam’s threatening to tell the Garrison medical staff how bad it is and they’re fighting, well, Adam still loves him.

Adam still loves him when he watches him try to teach Keith how to fight with focus and not just fight dirty, he loves watching Shiro when he’s in his element, all cool and calm in contrast to the kid, whose nearly feral in his intensity. When Shiro’s spare time for dates with Adam goes to tutoring Keith, he loves how dedicated he is. He loves Shiro when they cycle through days of distraction and Shiro pretending that nothing hurts and nights of agony, because Shiro is far, far too good at hiding how much pain he’s really in.

Adam sees Shiro holding his fork in his left hand and tries to love how resourceful he is, hears him cry out in the shower as the bottles of soap slip through his hand and the pain causes him to waver when Adam asks if he’d like him to join, he tries to love how strong Shiro is. Shiro shows him the upgraded medical bracelet that is supposed to help better than the last one and tells him not to worry, but he can’t help it, he loves him too much.  Desperately he tries to love him as he watches him push himself endlessly for his goals, he doesn’t understand how Matt and Keith and Iverson and the doctors don’t see it. Shiro is an expert at hiding it though and only Adam is really allowed in, so he loves him desperately and tells himself that Shiro lets him in because Shiro loves him too.

“I hate seeing you like this,” Adam whispers. Shiro is wincing every time the blankets touch his arm, the sensation too much to bear, and Adam is searching for Shiro’s medication. “You need to tell them how bad it is.”

“No, I can’t. Adam, you don’t understand,” but Adam thinks he does understand, Shiro’s a mess, a medical mess. “If I tell them this, if they know how much it affects me, I’ll never go back to the stars again, hell I’d never even be allowed to fly on earth again. I can’t Adam, you know I can’t.”

“Out of respect for you, I’m not going to tell them, and I’m not going to march you down there, because I love you; but would that really be so bad?” and he says that, but he’s mentioning it to Iverson as soon as possible. 

“My life would be over Adam, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“You have me,” Adam whispers.

Shiro nods, “and I love you, but it’s not the same. I need to do this while I still can.”

_ You think you still can? Look at you,  _ Adam thinks,  _ I am trying to hold you up and I am failing.  _ He prays that Shiro won’t get called out to the outer reaches of space before it’s far, far too late, and his clearance is gone. So by night he cares for Shiro and the words are only ever words but he can’t help it.

“How are you going to hide this in space, you are there twenty-four-seven, how will that even work?”

“You think you can do this? Shiro, I’m holding you up.” It’s not everyday, some days he’s still Mr. Superman, but one day of watching Shiro pretend he’s not in agony because what--because he loves the fucking night sky enough to ignore the world of hurt he’s living in? Isn’t he enough? Doesn’t he love him enough? Isn’t Adam and his mechanical, desperate steam engine heart enough? 

The next few weeks are strained but telling, and then Shiro says that he’s likely slated for the Kerberos Mission coming up, and Adam knows that it’s too far for Shiro, it’s too long a mission and he tells Iverson. Not the gory details, just that he knows Shiro isn’t well, not well enough to do this and it doesn’t matter what the Doctor sees because Adam knows Shiro, and deeper than that, Adam loves Shiro. 

It’s okay then, because he knows Shiro is talking about it, excited about it, and he can’t go. Adam doesn’t feel guilt about telling them, he’s protecting Shiro, but then Shiro comes home one day and his lips are in a tight line, so subtle he can hardly see it, and he moves to sit on the couch, and Adam stays at the counter, he doesn't move. He just wants to pretend everything is okay. He doesn’t want to ask, but he can’t help it. “Everything okay?”

Shiro’s bag lands on the couch, and then Shiro himself follows. “Iverson thinks I shouldn't be part of the mission. Called in the big guns, Admiral Sanda showed up and tried to convince Sam to remove me from the crew.” 

Adam turns to watch him, his heart is breaking inside but he’s always been practical. He knows that Shiro shouldn’t go, he just needs Shiro to see reason. “Well maybe he’s right,” and he’s turning to face Shiro, coffee in hand, no milk, one sugar. “Maybe you shouldn’t go on the mission. You’ll only be putting yourself at risk.”  _ You can’t Shiro, you’re a mess Shiro, can’t you see that?  _

Shiro does that trick with his voice where the words aren’t louder per se, but they seem to carry around the room, a command rather than a demand to be heard. “You know how important this is to me.” 

Adam does know, he knows that after every time he has asked Shiro to put him first, put him above the stars, above the Garrison and what Shiro can do for them, above Sam Holt’s precious research, or Keith’s need for his time or guidance, Shiro is never going to pick him first. The stars are the greatest love in Takahashi Shirogane’s life, and Adam cannot shine bright enough to outshine them. “It’s worth the risk.” Shiro says, but it’s not, it’s not to Adam, who has already risked his heart, his love and and his list of everything he wants in a relationship. He sets his coffee down, hard. He knows this, but he has to hear it, he can’t even watch. 

“Takashi, how important am I to you?” because he has to ask. He needs to hear Shiro say it, stress closes his eyes as he does when he knows that there is a fight or a difficult action around the corner. “Every mission. Every drill. I’ve been right there with you,” he says, “but this is more than a mission, this is your life at stake.”

Shiro makes a low noise in his throat and tosses his head back, but Adam isn’t watching. “Don’t start that again Adam. You don’t need to protect me--”  No, he certainly doesn’t, Adam thinks, and right now he isn’t sure if he even wants to.  “--this is something I need to do for myself.” 

He finally turns to look at Shiro over his shoulder, and Shiro isn’t looking back at him. “There’s nothing left for you to prove, you’ve broken every record there is to break,” there is the logical, and then for the practical, because Adam is nothing if not practical. “I know I can’t stop you, but I won’t go through this again.” His legs are standing, he already knows where this is going, in his mind, this is already goodbye. He’s calm and quiet as his heart beats in his chest as steady as a drum. Adam has already made his decision. “So if you decide to go,” he stares Shiro in the face, as boldly as he once stole a coffee mug and grasped Shiro’s hand under the stars. “Don’t expect me to be here when you get back.” 

He snatches up his regulation messenger bag with a hurried “I’ve got a class to teach.” He doesn’t give Shiro time to answer, because he already knows the answer, and he walks out.  

He walks out of the door just like he walked into Shiro’s heart all that time ago, honest and so very, very brave. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The feels! I really hope I did some justice to this, I swear the words just sprung across the page! I also feel like saying this isn't Adam's last chapter. Promise. Oh, and while the story follows a progressive timeline, some events repeat or are told by different characters in different ways because different points of view and feelings and stuff. I'm not really wanting to fix it or retell Voltron, just enhance it, and also because I watched season seven and was like. Huh, is it just me or are Keith and Shiro kinda gay for each other? 
> 
> Oh, that was a long rant, sorry, I'll try not to talk so much next time and let the story speak for itself. Updates are about 8 days apart.


	4. Hand Me Down Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked up to the stars and I looked up to him.

D. Hand Me Down Hero

 

When the teachers in Keith’s school asked who Keith’s hero was, the answer never changed. He just didn’t tell them the truth. _Superman, Frodo, Optimus Prime_ , he echoed the characters in the comics and books that were left to him by his real hero. The other kids in school made fun of him of course, emo kid, his hero is probably Dracula! _Oh, no_ not edgy enough, they’d argue and he’d role his eyes. As long as he could remember, his hero was also his dad, and as far back as anyone in the home had spoken about him, it had always been the same: fireman, real life hero.

When he was younger he was proud, and then when his father died, he was just sad. He was sad and lonely and it didn’t feel like there was anybody out  there in the whole world that would ever be able to fill the cracks in between his broken heart. Mom had left them before he even knew her, nothing but a whisper in the night and a forgotten dream and a mysterious knife. His old man though, never would get to grow old, not really, not old enough. Keith’s hero was buried in the ground, and buried beside him, in the unforgiving desert, was Keith’s childhood.

At his age, no longer a cute, mold-able baby, there wasn’t much hope that he’d ever leave the group home. He wasn’t naive about it either, or cooperative, he didn’t really see the point in being the model child. His grades were fine enough, but his teachers and caretakers spoke about him in a tone that bellied a deep exasperation and an artful pause of overreaching patience. Nobody wanted him, and that was okay, he didn’t really want anybody either.

Keith was just minding his own business, staring out the window, when Takashi Shirogane, poster-boy of the Galaxy Garrison, hero to all the locals and at least half of his peers in class, decided to make his speech. All of the other students were so excited and tittering with energy. This guy didn’t look like much, he thought, clean, pristine, but probably no more substance than a sheet of paper. There certainly didn’t look like enough depth to make a whole book. He was bringing the class an out for the day though, and eventually he was called up into the machine that Shirogane had brought.

It wasn’t the best simulator, but it was only a small tool for testing potential recruits, and Keith’s instincts reacted as soon as he was in the machine. He could see all the openings, where to press and when to retreat, pushing and pulling his way through several levels, but on the fringes he could hear the teacher beginning to talk.

_Really? Him? Keith?_ She didn’t have to say it for him to hear it. _Worthless._

He didn’t register Shirogane in the background “-looks like he’s ready to fly the real thing.” Keith was already long gone mentally and he was running physically. Crash the ship, though the crowd, open the door, _what idiot leaves their keys in their car?_ No clutch, fully automatic, start her up and…

Freedom. Driving with his dad through the desert late at night, the stars watching as they made their getaway, except it’s broad daylight and the quiet and peace of the night can’t compare to the racket that is the cops blaring their sirens behind him. Those nights never ended in handcuffs in juvie, crossing off joyride from the bucket list, but here he is.

Garrison Good Boy Takashi Shirogane comes to get him, and it’s the first time anybody has come to get him that wasn’t obligated too. Keith doesn’t know what he’s playing at, but he takes his card anyway, and then, when Shirogane asks him to show up, he takes a chance.

 

That one small mercy, one small kindness leads to something a little bigger than Keith, and suddenly, he’s not just Keith, he’s Cadet Keith. He’s a part of something bigger, and still he feels the need to test the limits of all of it, convinced that they’re all ready to throw him out at a moments notice and waiting for Takashi _-call-me-Shiro-_ Shirogane to finally realize he’s not worth it.

It takes him finally losing it and punching that loser James Griffin in the face to realize, okay, maybe they don’t really want him here, but Shiro does. Shiro steps up the the plate and goes to bat for him, and he gets to stay. It’s not enough to turn the tide in his favour, but he curbs his behavior a bit. He starts taking his frustrations out on the training equipment in gym, and then once they allow him to independently book the sim, he starts grinding the levels and scenarios methodically, like a man on a mission. He’s good, but he’s not great, too filled with anger and diving forward into everything without enough patience, or any patience at all if you ask Matt.

“Whoa, easy there little guy, Shiro’s scores will still be there whether you growl at them or not,” and of course, knowing Shiro came with the dubious honor of also knowing his friend Matt.

“They won’t be there if I beat them, I know I can. There’s a point five of a second that I’m so close but I can make it up if I cut even closer, bank just a bit later.” Keith grumbles, but his eyes are full of fire. “I know I can.”

Matt grins and it’s impish as hell. “I’d like to see that, but not today, you’ve already been in here for hours. Time to move on. Don’t you have stuff to do?”

“Uh, no.” Keith replies, and he does have homework, but he has decided that it’s not that important.

“Uh huh,” Matt rolls his eyes. “Like I buy that, move along little one.”

Keith garbles and growls something about being short, but he gives up the sim for the day and wanders to the library to work on that homework anyway. Shiro is there, he doesn’t look up or wave, but the guy who is with him does. His hair and skin are bronze and his eyes are warm brown, his glasses are sliding down his nose and he pushes them back up as he looks up and sees Keith.

“Hello,” mouths Adam, he’s not one to yell in the library. Keith nods and moves to sit at their table, a few chairs away.

He’s unpacking his standard issue tablet, “Matt kicked me out of the sim,” he complains, and at that, Shiro finally perks up, lifting his attention from the page slowly. “Oh, hi there Keith. Did you need some help with your homework?”

“No, I’ve got it, I think. I mostly just wanted to complain about your tag-along scientist,” Keith mutters, but divides his attention.

“As opposed to complaining about your roommates, wait, please tell me that you’ve at least learned one of their names.”

“I know James Griffon’s name,”

“Okay. the name of the Cadet you punched in the face and went through basic and and middle school with is not a helping your case.” Adam feels the need to point out. “Also, you’re no longer roommates, see the incident above.”

“Wow I have a lot of homework for this essay on biotechnics,” He deflects and the silence sits, stagnant as they all slip into studying and Shiro assumes that Keith doesn’t want to talk about it. He opts to finish his work quietly before leaving, but also feels the need to offer them something, something to say that he’s fitting in and doing well and everything.

“Lance,” He says. “I’m not positive, but I think so, he’s really loud.”

It’s a small gesture, that he’s trying, but it seems to mean the world to Shiro. Things change slowly, but they do change. First it’s an offer to help with homework which finds Keith in the library and often back in his and Adam’s quarters, pouring over notes on the table, making corrections as Shiro courtesy proofreads some of his essays and tries to explain basic calculus. Keith deliberately starts to spend his early mornings in the gym to spend more time with Shiro, and Shiro tries to teach him enough self defense to make him an okay sparring partner. Keith instantly falls in love with with the strength and self awareness that comes with it. He rolls, he blocks, he strikes, drill after drill.

Shiro isn’t always available, between recruiting youth and public events and the missions that they start sending him on, taking a crew out to collect samples and take pictures and videos, his schedule is unpredictable at best. He’s too busy being the Golden Boy that Keith jokes he is. So he learns to make do, and he doesn’t know the face of everyone that he takes on in the ring or on the mat, doesn’t know if they are senior or junior cadets, but he only sometimes really gets his ass handed to him, and the teachers don’t care about this kind of fighting. He also makes a note about exactly how much overtime Shiro seems to be putting on in the gym, but he leaves it on the back burner as Shiro leaves yet again on another short haul to Phobos.

When Shiro comes back, he arranges to take Keith out on the hover bikes in the desert. Keith watches in wonder as Shiro plummets over the edge of a cliff. Shiro is all careful control and calculated risk and he can’t help but admire that, from afar this time, as Keith pulls up. He tells Shiro he’s not ready to do that yet, and somehow dropping his ego and realizing he’s not ready is a small step of growth. He points out Shiro’s wristbands and Shiro shrugs it off in a way Keith will reflect on as uncomfortable, and deflects by asking about Keith’s hero. Years of coming to terms with the mother that loved him and abandoned him, his father that didn’t think he wouldn’t come home as he ran out to help in a fire, years of anger and despair and wondering why this all happened to him and not somebody else comes down to a downcast look and a sigh. “He was a real hero,” Keith says, but he’s not sure that his dad is _his_ hero right now.

Shiro takes him back to the Garrison with a promise of a surprise in the days to come, and then he leaves for a while on a mission and Keith doesn’t see him for long enough he starts to feel lonely. Instead of seeking the company of the other cadets in training, especially the loud one he spends his spare time in the library, unconsciously gravitating toward Shiro’s table. He’s working out his astrophysics essay on his tablet when he’s interrupted by the slap of a notebook on the table and a sigh.

“Adam,” he nods, going back to his tablet. Adam looks tired and weary and distracted, but it’s not really Keith’s business.

The chair scrapes across the ground, echoing in the quiet space. “Hello Keith,” Adam nods.

Shiro would have asked him what he was working on, and did he need any help? Shiro would have quietly positioned himself next to Keith instead of across from him and pointed out any mistakes in his work. Shiro… Keith realises there and then that he misses Shiro.

Adam is very different from Shiro, where Shiro is warm, Adam is cool. Shiro isn’t really inclined to talk about himself, instead always focusing on others, for how much time Keith spends with Shiro, he’s not sure how much he really knows him. Adam is far more inclined to introspect and to be open about it, it’s almost as he gains confidence from taking everything apart and examining it from every angle, and he’s not shy about what he is and what he isn’t. Keith hesitates to think as Adam as an open book, because he’s not, but the spaces between the lines are uniform and can be decrypted in contrast to  Shiro’s spaces which contain whole paragraphs of missing information.

Adam huffs and sighs for what must be at least the fourth time, and even Keith, as inclined as he is to let the silence continue, can take a hint. “What is it?” and okay, that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be blunt about it.

He’s staring Adam in the face, just about ready to huff and turn away when Adam decides to fill him in.

“Relationship problems,” Adam looks down, and that’s odd because Shiro’s not even here to be part of the problem.

“Isn’t Shiro back in a few days though? It’s not like that other mission a while ago where he left for a few months?”

“Yeah,” Adam sighs again. Keith has no idea what to say or do, but it feels odd to not say anything, “Well, you can talk about it with him when he gets back, right?”

“More like fight about it,” Adam murmurs and Keith gets the feeling he wasn’t supposed to hear that, so he doesn’t say anything, and when Adam leaves, he spends a long time staring at his back, trying to figure out what that was all about.

 

A few days later finds Keith in the labs, looking for Matt and wondering about Shiro. Shiro came home yesterday and his face was drawn and his brows tight and his voice wavered and although he told Keith to find him in the hangers when he’s done with his drills, Keith takes a moment to seek out Matt in the labs.

The speech he’s prepared to give to Matt dies as he sees that Matt is occupied with a smaller girl, who looks just like him, he’s gesturing to the lab equipment, loudly enunciating how everything the light touches will one day be hers. Somehow, more than one Matt seems like too much to handle so he decides to take his complaint right to the source.

Shiro is, of course, on time and waiting in the hanger. He’s standing proudly by a brand new red hoverbike and running a cloth of polish over the large fenders.

“I’m surprised you haven’t started cooing to it yet,” Keith comments dryly. “Please don’t tell me your one of _those people_ that name their cars.”

“Okay then, I won’t,” and there’s a shine in his eyes that near matches the shine on the vehicle and Keith isn’t sure that he can get any more poster-boy-perfect. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to go for a ride on her though, she’s faster than the Garrison’s bikes and twice as smooth.”

Keith puts on a wicked grin, “Well, Shiro, when you put it that way, I suppose you can call her whatever you like, pass me that helmet.”

Shiro drives them out into the desert and Keith forgets that he meant to ask him about Adam and instead he holds tightly to Shiro, feeling very small in comparison.

“Hold on,” Shiro yells over the roar of the bike, and they’re flying, faster and farther across the desert. A few moments and they’re falling as Shiro plunges down the cliff that Keith hasn’t attempted yet. Keith closes his eyes and he feels, he feels the plunge and the last moment when the thrusters engage and he realizes it’s not strength that Shiro has, its skill and experience, but it’s also trust.

When Shiro dives off the cliff he’s also trusting in his own abilities and himself to save them. Keith doesn’t trust himself like that yet, but he whispers “Patience yields focus” under his breath in what he doesn’t know will become the mantra to save his life.

Patience yields focus is about himself, but it’s tied to Shiro, to the one person who believed him, believed in him, who believes he will be something great, one day.

That night, he fondly thinks of Shiro as his personal hero, staring down at his locked box that has a picture of this father, the knife his absent mother left, and that damn birth certificate with no clues. He adds a picture of Shiro to his collection, a low quality print out of him and his bike in the hangers and thinks that maybe this is enough family for him.

 

Everything goes so well that week, that he forgets about Adam’s earlier comment, he forgets about Shiro’s weary and drawn expression and instead focuses on doing better, being better, he’s going to join Shiro in the sky one day and that means not skipping class, and not being insubordinate at every turn. Some of the teachers have noted Shiro’s influence at work and none of them discourage Keith from being friends with him. The Cadets all get sorted into specializations at it’s not a surprise that Keith gets slotted in with the future fighter pilots. He’s proud, ecstatic, and the first place he goes is Shiro’s office to tell him.

Shiro’s not alone though, Matt’s father Commander Holt is there, and Admiral Sanda, and Keith’s smart enough not to just walk in, but he stays, he stays and he hears because they’re not being all that quiet anyway. It all comes back, Shiro’s weariness and Adam’s sigh after sigh. So he stays for as long as he dares and he waits and he finds Shiro alone up on the flight deck.

 

“You sick or something?”

 

From there, everything explodes silently. Everything comes crashing down, and _what the hell, Shiro? Why didn’t you tell anyone?_ In the end though, it doesn’t matter. Shiro is insistant, he’s going on the mission. He’s going to kerberos, and Keith understands.

 

Keith isn’t seeking out Shiro right now, he’s not mad at him for not telling him about the whole situation. He’s mad at himself for not noticing, Shiro is his friend, and how dare he not realize that he’s in pain. At the heart of it though, Keith knows Shiro is exceptionally good at being personable without being personal. The concept is not foreign to him, after all Keith is excellent at being standoffish without actively being antisocial. His reputation precedes him, and so, he realizes, does Shiros’. Shiro is known for being friendly and helpful, he’s strong. He’s incredibly mentally and physically strong, and it bellies the fact that he’s afraid of being anything else.

While Keith isn’t seeking out Shiro, Adam is actively seeking out him. This time he’s an unexpected co pilot in the simulator.

“I’ll be your engineer for this run,” Adam says as he steps in.

Keith sizes him up for a moment, but then scoffs. “I don’t need an engineer for this run.”

“Humor me,” Adam grins, but while his smile matches his words, his eyes are sharp, calculating, like he has something to say. Adam probably wouldn’t seek him out if he didn’t have something to say, Keith figures. He’s unlike Matt who occasionally seeks Keith out to show him the newest, coolest thing that he just built, and he had to tell somebody about, and Keith just happens to be the nearest lucky soul.

“We broke up,” he says. It comes out of left field, and left bank as Keith rips the ship on the port side, pulling up unnecessarily hard while navigating around neptune and its gravity. He only knew that Adam didn’t want Shiro to go.

“What?” Keith blinks, pulling the ship under control, he feels like in his heart he knows this, all the pieces in the puzzle fit, but he didn’t expect Adam to say it. Adam was right that he didn’t need an engineer, but that doesn’t stop him from running diagnostic on the virtual interface, sitting behind the pilots seat on deck, Adam might be a fighter pilot, but Adam truly shines as a jack of all trades.

“Me and Shiro, I mean,” He sighs, and Keith shakes his head, yet another long sigh for Shiro, courtesy of Adam. “I’m not positive, but I gave him an ultimatum. He leaves for Kerberos and I leave him.”

“I can’t do it anymore,” Keith can see the cracks in his finely crafted armor. “He’ll need somebody though, if he goes up to the sky, somebody who can be a friend and wave goodbye and welcome him back.”

Adam doesn’t tell him that it needs to be him, Adam doesn’t even push it. “I just thought you should know, because it can’t be me.”

“Okay,” Keith says. He’s halfway to having the best record on this flight path, but all he can think about is Shiro, who is alone and dealing with this. Adam was his pillar of support, before Keith got there, Adam was silently dealing with all things Shiro. “Did you know before? Way back when, that he was sick?”

“Yeah,” Adam says. That doesn’t make it better though, and that doesn’t make Shiro any less alone with his thoughts right now, and Keith knows how terrible it can be to be alone with your thoughts.

“Requesting permission to exit the aircraft, sir.” Adam after all, is higher ranking, a teacher and an officer when need be.

“Permission granted.” Keith leaves the simulator, maybe to crash, maybe in Adams capable hands, and he’s walking briskly to where Shiro lives. He knew that Adam had already said this to Shiro, but Shiro had casually shrugged it off to Keith earlier. Seeing the chinks in Adams armor makes Keith realize it was probably way worse than it was, and how very good at hiding Shiro could be. He’s rapping his knuckles on Shiro’s door and almost growling, “Let me in.”

“Keith,” Shiro’s face is surprised, his eyes are slightly red. “I didn’t expect to see you again today…” he trails off. “Did you want…?”

“To come in?” Keith interrupts. “Yes, actually. My coffee maker is broken and came to borrow yours.”

It’s the flimsiest excuse available and Shiro’s eyebrows raise accordingly. “You don’t have a coffee maker in your dorm… you don’t even drink coffee Keith…”

 

“I know,” Keith is always so very blunt. “Let me in anyway.”

Shiro does, and Keith sits across from him. “I just, didn’t want you to be alone, okay? I saw Adam, he’s a mess. I just, I know what it’s like to be alone Shiro. I wouldn't want that for anyone. On top of that you are sick-”

“Don’t Keith” Shiro starts. “I’m aware, I’m aware of the disease that I have, it’s mine and it will always be mine. I’m stronger than it, for now.”

“I don’t blame you for going.”

“You don’t?”

“No, Shiro.” Keith is now the one that's sighing, he’s arranging his limbs up on the couch, beside Shiro and so close that he can tip over just a little and lean into his shoulder, “I think you should. I don’t care what Adam thinks, if you think you can do it, then I think you should. It’s your dream right? The farthest into space you’ve ever been. Maybe you only get one chance, it’s ok.”

“I just want my life to mean something. I don’t want to look back and say that I settled.” Shiro’s almost leaning into Keith at this point, a pillar of support. “You know, Commander Holt says that sometimes, If you get too worried about what could go wrong,  you might miss a chance to do something great.”

“You are great Shiro, you believed in me when nobody else has,” _and nobody else will,_ he fails to add, but he thinks it really hard.

Keith can feel Shiro give a light shrug beside him. “While I’m gone, just remember, patience yields focus Keith, you can be a fighter pilot, I know you can.”

“Yeah, I think I just might,” Keith laughs, “one day I’ll be showing _you_ the ropes, oldtimer.”

Shiro laughs and somehow everything just seems lighter. “So I’ve never really gone through a break up, I’m not sure, is this the part where we eat ice cream?”

“Shiro, I’ve never even been kissed, so I have no fucking clue,” Keith rolls his eyes.

“Really? Huh, wouldn't have guessed, honestly.” Shiro looks just a slight puzzled and Keith is surprised that he would assume otherwise.

“Yeah Shiro, between living in a shack in the desert while my dad was still alive, and spending most of puberty in a group home full of vagrant children and bullies, I’m not sure who I’m supposed to have kissed. I’m only sixteen anyway, I’ve got time.”

“Ok, good point.”

“You mentioned ice cream,” Keith redirects, Shiro’s already getting up and finding bowls and digging in the icebox. “So I did,” and there’s the promised frozen treat.

“So if you could have kissed anyone,” Shiro starts, eyes full of mischief. “Who you you pick.” He’s carefully spooning the same amount of ice cream into both bowls.

“Huh,” Keith gets up, staring him straight in the face, he waits precisely until Shiro is staring right back, grey eyes fixed on violet. The tension builds between them, until keith smirks “Iverson.”

“What?” Shiro sputters, laughing, “No for real.”

“Naw, nobody comes to mind,” Keith shrugs, but Shiro is lifting a bowl of ice cream into his hands, smile on his face, and Keith can’t help but think _you,_ but it’s not the time or the place and so he sticks to his guns. It’s a maybe anyway, and there's so much time between them, a world of experience. There’s age and rank, there's Adam and there’s all the space between earth and pluto, between terra and kerberos, it’s not worth more than a passing thought. “Nobody I can think of, anyway.”

The ice cream is better than the food in the cafferia and although Keith the ice cream runs out that night, Keith returns to Shiro’s room in the evening before curfew in the days and weeks before he leaves for Kerberos. It’s coming up so quickly. In the first week, all of Adam’s belongings disappear from Shiro’s quarters. He’s high enough ranking that the Garrison doesn’t appoint him a roommate.

 

Keith sees more of Matt and his father,Commander Holt, then he has in all his time at the Garrison. They spend more time then ever in Shiro’s office, going over all the logistics with their star pilot, Keith makes sure to give them privacy as some of it is confidential, but he greets them and never fails to feel slightly uncomfortable under Commander Holt's warm, assessing gaze. Keith sees the faith that Commander Holt has in Shiro and he knows that that faith is well placed. Until the launch though, Keith keeps Shiro company, and he’s good company too. He never presses for anything personal, but Keith occasionally lets the subject drift there anyway, because he trusts Shiro.

“I used to think that my mom would find out about my dad, in like an obituary or something, and come find me at the home. Or somebody that knew either of them, but I still don’t know anything about her. She left, I don’t know if she walked out or died, but she never looked back.”

“She didn’t leave you anything?”

“Nothing that matters,” He lies, and the knife in the lockbox weighs heavily on his conscious but he’s not ready to open it yet.

Sometimes it’s Shiro confessing instead. “I feel like I have an expiry date, like everybody’s swimming ahead of me and I’m swimming twice as hard just not to get ripped under the current, but it’s inevitable isn’t it?”

 

Three nights before he leaves, Keith stays on the couch, even if he’s breaking the rules. Shiro stumbles out in the middle of the night, waking Keith as he fumbles, desperately searching the counters for something.

“Can I help you?” Keith asks, sleepy but aware enough.

“Meds,” Shiro grunts.

Keith scrambles up to help turn on the low lights in the kitchen. “How much does it hurt right now?”

“Bearable,” is the grunt.

“Sit down Shiro, I’ll find them okay?” Shiro groans low, but allows Keith to guide him back to the couch. “What does the label say?”

“Ketorolac, it’s left of the sink.” Shiro answers, so Keith finds the bottle, and then a cup to fill with water. He brings Shiro the medicine and he sits beside him, he’s not going to ask when he’s a mess. He can hear the pause between Shiro’s breath and he knows he must be counting fairly deliberately. Five, five, and five seconds between breath and the holding and the exhale.

“Are you going to ask?” Shiro asks.

Keith isn’t sure what he means, and he’s not going to guess. “No.”

“It’s not always like this,” Shiro defends, “I mean, I’m okay now.”

“Nobody knows how bad it is, do they Shiro?”

“Just Adam, and you, I guess.”

Ok, Keith can work with that. He gets keeping things close to the chest, he understands keeping _this_ close to the chest, this close to the launch. “I’m still not going to tell you not to go”

“Thank you Keith,” Shiro sighs, weary with all of the word on his shoulders. “I can do this.”

“I know,” he assures but in his head he can’t help but think _who are you trying to convince, me or you?_ At the end of the day though, even with the pain and the issue, Shiro’s still the best pilot the Garrison has.

 

Before he knows it, the launch time is upon them, and Shiro is focused and appears stronger and more untouchable than ever before. He gives Keith the keys to his hoverbike to keep safe and he tells Keith that he didn’t name it, but maybe Keith can come up with something when he’s away. True to his word, Adam doesn’t come to the launch, but Keith is there for him. He gives Shiro one last hug, clutches his bike keys in hand and waves, even if they can’t see him anymore.

Keith admires the struggle, the good fight, that Shiro is refusing to give up in the face of adversary. Keith values strength above all, in body, in mind and in heart. He knows Shiro will be up there among the stars living his dream for longer than anybody has told him he can. He believes in Shiro. He can picture it in his mind, the Garrison’s own Golden Boy, away in a rocket ship, up beyond Heracles and Orion, where Earth is a far away distant thought.  “You can do this, Hero.” Though his whisper is lost among the noise of the spacecraft, his voice doesn't waver, he knows it's a promise to himself. “I’ll be here when you get back, and next time, I won't be left behind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a beta, so sorry if there are mistakes. (If anybody wants to pre-read, make edits, let me know.) Thank you everyone for reading and all the kudos and comments, It's motivated me to push this next chapter along and will help with the next.


	5. Delphinus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know now that dignity is a privilege and mercy is a luxury. Neither of them were things I could afford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for canonical things that happen during Shiro's time aboard a Galra ship. Non-consensual amputation, body-mod, captivity, gladiator style fights. Tried to keep it a little glossy/implication based and less graphic.

E. Delphinus

Shiro knows that he can go it alone. He was Shiro by himself before he was Shiro with Adam and he is Shiro the fighter pilot, space exploration division, all by himself as well. He’s the one who broke all the records, he’s the Golden Star of the Garrison. In the cold and dark spaces of his heart, he knows that Adam breaking it off was better than Adam resenting him in the days and years to come.

Shiro stands by himself, surveying the barren landscape of Kerberos, as Commander Holt and Matt set up shop to extract the samples the Garrison wants. The vastness and depth of space overwhelms him for only a moment before he is back to himself, and back to the job.

He glances up just in time to see the violent violet of alien spacecraft. First there is the wonder, that this is really happening and not just a trick of the light, and then it is a concern that the creatures that have found them are not friendly. He calls and pleads that they are peaceful, but the creatures that have found them either do not believe them, or cannot understand them. However it rapidly becomes clear that it’s not that at all, it’s rather simply, that they do not care. Shiro protests, and everything goes dark.

 

When the light seeps in again, everything is different, everything Shiro thought he knew, knows he knew, has changed. Life was flying, life was full of Matt making fun of him and Adam’s kisses and Keith’s desperate hope that maybe everything will turn out ok. Life is now Matt, huddled and scared and trying to be brave, and then he’s gone like Commander Holt. The aliens bring them all down to a pit, to fight, to die. Matt is chosen at first, and Shiro knows that he cannot let that happen. Shiro throws Matt under the bus and volunteers his body in violence, he can fight, he can do this. It's all he can do to save Matt from his fate, and it works, the captors drag Matt away while they lead Shiro into the ring.

He doesn’t know if he’ll see Matt again but he knows that he can give them both a chance, right here, right now. All he needs to do is fight.

What is in front of Shiro is like the gladiator fights of old but against monsters from every relm and planet and universe. It feels like a test, at first he’s in communal cells fighting aliens that cry and plead like he once did, eyes begging for an end, and then he’s all alone, in his own cell, fighting beasts so much stronger than that. It’s both better and worse, he gets to keep all the food they give him, but there’s not a soul for company. His captors are the Galra, and they call him the Champion, he hears it echo in the halls, and that’s right when everything goes to shit.

If he were a greek hero, then the Minotaur would be welcome--at least compared to Myzax, whose bulk ensures that he won’t go down easy if he ever goes down at all. Shiro will not lose, will not be lost, and will not die here. He pays the price of a scar, wide across the bridge of his nose that will not heal smooth. The Myzax is defeated by him, barely, and it hardly feels like a victory when they are both dragged away, chains rattling.

He watches the world from the inside of a box, and he sees the different classes of Galra. Some are commanders and officers and some are guards. All are soldiers. Shiro watches the sentries as they follow paths like clockwork around the cells. He’s certain that they are robotic.

Every once in a while a cloak goes by, presumably Galra but impossible to tell. They have masks of bone white and the cloaks hide their body while they seem to hover or float. (Shiro can’t decide if it’s magic or science, but it gives him something to think about in the idle hours.) The fear that follows them is palpable. It is as if they are the grim reaper of legend. They only lack a scythe, but from what Shiro hears, their words cut sharper than a blade.  

The reapers come for him one night after a rough fight. The cloaked figures drag him from the familiar isolation of his cell, they push him into the room, whole, but he comes out broken. A knife doesn’t do their tone justice, brutal and calculating, he hears them talk and it’s more like a bat full of nails. He hears the crank of the saw before he feels it, and there’s a sharp stab of pain in his arm before his mind cannot take it and he passes out.

 

He wakes, feeling violated and disgusted, he lifts his hand to his face and he can watch the hand open and close, can almost feel it touch the walls of his cell. It’s advanced technology, he logically knows that it must be connected to his nerves, but it feels wrong. It’s an arm, but it’s engineered by the Galra, not the one he was born with.

There’s a  feeling that creeps on the edge of his consciousness for days, until it’s too big to ignore. It’s anger, its raw rage, he’s absolutely furious. The Galra have taken everything, the very last things to fall away are is his dignity and finally; mercy. His dignity falls away as his pride is crushed by the druids, every day not knowing if they will come to take another piece, another pound of flesh. Mercy goes hard, but he walks into the ring as the Champion, bloodthirsty, and it’s the only modicum of protection that he can give himself. He doesn’t earn respect, because he is not Galra and not worthy of respect. Shiro earns only another day to be allowed to live, and the courtesy of being fed and caged by those who were allowing him to live.

Slowly his hair grows in white from the stress, stark like fresh snow on asphalt, but there’s no mirrors so he’s not sure what he looks like beyond being a total mess. The scar across his nose itches when he grimaces, and he earns far more silvery scars across his chest and legs that are like sheep to count when he cannot sleep.

Sometimes he just stays awake, listening the hum of the other prisoners, reminiscing over their earths, their worlds, that the Galra have outright destroyed or taken from him.

 

His world has yet to know the Galra, but he wonders if the Garrison is looking for him. When he’s feeling whimsical, he imagines it’s Keith out there. Keith, who will be a better pilot than Shiro one day. Shiro closes his eyes and can see him out among the stars, wondering where Shiro disappeared, maybe he even comes to find him, to drag him out of the cell where he is the Champion and back to earth where he is just Shiro.

He wonders about Adam, if Adam will regret not seeing him off, not saying goodbye. If the last time he will see Adam is when he came back to their room to pack up all of his things, the silence tense and feeling far too final. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Adam washing his coffee mugs in the sink, smiling a small secret smile to himself at all the sugar crusted to the bottom of Shiro’s mugs. Shiro can pretend his last words to him were something like “nobody cares if you don’t actually like your coffee black, Takashi, I don’t think you are any less badass,” instead of something like “Don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”

_What if he’s never going back?_

Thinking of earth makes him sad and worried. There’s no reason to think that the Galra are looking for earth, but they are out here and earth should be warned. The Galaxy Garrison should know that they found more evidence than they wanted about the possible life out in the universe.

Other life is Galra and countless others that he’s faced in the colosseum, it’s advanced weaponry and ships beyond his wildest imagination. He tries to remember in case he can get back to earth.

He has no idea if they’ll believe him there, because he can hardly believe that he’s here sometimes.

In the idle hours of the day, between matches and in the days that the guards seem to forget he’s even still in there, Shiro imagines how that conversation would go.

Adam would approach with logic.

“So their culture is most like, say, the ancient romans? Or even Egyptians-they have a leader they believe to be omnipotent like a pharaoh, but they conquer territory like Rome, assimilating all to their culture?”

“I think so Adam,” _but it’s a narrow view between the bars of the window and the stands of the stadium._

 _“_ Fascinating. The Galra speak multiple languages including ours-and appear mostly in variations of grey to purple with cat or bat like features. Am I accurate?”

“More or less, I would say,” and Shiro would say. If Adam were here or Shiro were there.

 

Keith, he thinks,  is not so dispassionate. He is also far too good at reading between the lines. “Gladiator fights? You are the best fighter in the Garrison Shiro, who did this to you?” The slight hero worship of the younger man would colour his tone, Shiro is sure. It wouldn’t cover up his concern though. As much as Keith pretends that he’s not concerned by anything around him, there is no way that he would miss the scars that Shiro is littered in. On the good days he imagines that Keith only comments on his arm, “how dare they take you away in pieces!” “It’s not your fault!” “None of this is your fault.”

 _This is not your fault,_ Shiro whispers to himself in the back of his own mind and tries desperately to believe it.

On the dark days, where he has robbed the life of some other captive, maybe even innocent creatures, if innocence is something that can be chained by the Galra— those days he sees Keith frown and sneer and comment. “Look how they’ve ruined you.”

He knows, logically, that it’s the fear and the isolation speaking, because for a long time now, nobody has said anything to him at all. Around him and about him there is all the chatter, but it’s been a while since somebody met his eyes and spoke to him.

 

Mattwouldn’t believe him, but only at first. “Okay man. You have got to be pulling my leg. You met aliens up there? Yeah, really? Wait till I tell my dad, and Katie! Oh my god, Shiro, there are aliens out there! You have proof! One small step for human- one big step for science!”

Shiro snorts to himself in amusement before sighing as he realizes that Matt met the Galra too, they just suffered different fates and he has no idea where he is now.

 

Lost in his thoughts, wondering if it’s been weeks or years, is where he first meets Sendak.

“So this is the fabled Champion,” Shiro glances up to see yet another Galra looking at him. The Galra is staring as if evaluating him.

“Sendak, this is him, are you attending the match---?” Shiro believes they are speaking of a time, but only some of the words drift to his ears, “undefeated,” and “Champion,” maybe “Druid,” he turns on his heel and Shiro can predict the familiar salute.

“Vrepit sa.”

He doesn’t know what it means, but he can assume it’s cultural or military, spoken frequently like a salute, he’s pondering the context when they come again to take him away.

 

The crowd in the arena is calling for blood tonight, but they call for blood every night. When he walks through those doors, he calls for blood. When he walks through those doors, all of the definitive things Shiro thought he knew about himself fall away like leaves in a windstorm. Here, he is not who he is deep down on the inside. Instead he is the shell protecting that deep down place. _With your shield, or on it._

He lets his mind wrap up the kind boy, the posterboy, the golden boy, and put it all away into neat little boxes. All that is needed here is survival, eat or be eaten. Shiro will not be eaten. He will be chewed up and spat out, time after time, but he won’t be swallowed by it. When he walks through those doors, he will be far too tough a meal for whatever or whoever is on the other side.

This time he has his right arm at his side, lights glowing and flashing, the hum of the technology is hard at work. His enemy stands taller, but with no less desperation. He’s not familiar with this race, but they are humanoid, with bright patches of color like a chameleon that can’t fixate on blending in well enough to be invisible. The color flashes are distracting and draw Shiro’s eyes as his opponents’ left and right arms both begin to glow with the obvious distinctive violet of Galra tech--just like his, but two of them.

 

Shiro steels himself, he will be walking out of here. He doesn’t rush in, he waits for his opponent to come to him, and they do. “Fight, Champion,” they goad, the words not matching the dead expression on their face.

He takes the invitation, reaching out to intercept the slug that is being thrown his way, he ducks and drops into a roundhouse kick to at least makes his opponent jump back. Instinct drives him to strike his right palm out where he thinks it’s heart is, or at least it’s chest cavity. They might not even have a heart, some of those he’s fought, don’t.

Now’s not the time to worry about it, they step back and then forward, one of those dangerous hands striking across midsection as he reaches up to block the one going toward his face. The contact rips open his abdomen, but the nature of the wound cauterizes it immediately. The hurt wakes up the survival instinct in him, screaming for space between them.

He needs distance to evaluate what he needs to do. Those arms, if they are as dangerous as his, need to go. This time when he strikes, he aims for the right wrist. His human hand reaching out to grasp theirs at the joint, leaping to flank the enemy, and chopping right at the shoulder before turning into a rough grasp, his human hand wrenching back as much as he can to force something to dislocate. The mechanical arm glows with a laser edge and the enemy screams and reaches their other arm around to grab at his human wrist. He feels the burn of the laser beam and he doesn’t care if it’s science or magic, because it _hurts._ He won’t let up though, the the flesh of their shoulder slumps as he severs right into the muscle.

Soon enough, the burn it’s too much for Shiro and he pulls away, but not before he has left his opponent’s arm damaged enough to become useless. One down, _now we are even._

There is still one to go. The crowd whispers echo of “Champion,” but his ears are deaf to anything other that the noise they make when the victory is assured, when it’s over. Until then he’ll have to make do.

The alien has found their resolve in the time that he has been studying them, and they once again make the first move, putting Shiro on the defensive.

Unlike Keith, who believes a good defence is an aggressive offence, Shiro actually moves to defend, waiting for the opening. _Patience, yields focus._

First, a breath in, he waits as his opponent overextends themselves, their balance torn away like the muscles in their arm. Shiro’s focus is directed to a single precise second where their feet tip and Shiro leans back to let them fall in toward him. His human hand reaches behind him to push against the floor and in the split second where their eyes widen and they realize they are too far forward and need to take a step back, he flexes the muscles in his calves and pushes against the ground, burned abdomen straining to push forward toward the off-balance enemy, mechanical hand outstretched and glowing.

He aims right for their throat, catching them in his clutches. If time slowed down he would be able to tell you about the exhale rolling across his fist as he closes his hand as hard as he can around their neck. He could tell you all of the romantic notions of the light leaving their eyes and their soul departing to the glowing stars in the universe.

It’s a romantic notion; time doesn’t slow down for anyone in the arena, not the cheering audience, not the perceived enemy, now broken and departed on the ground. It doesn’t slow down for Shiro either, and he can only grant himself that at that last moment, it was quick. Mercy isn’t something he can afford to entertain, and it hardly entertains the Galra.

There is an illusion of free will as he turns and exits the arena, not a guard beside him, no cuffs around his wrists. It lasts all the way to the door, as does his Champion persona. When he arrives at the door, there are the cuffs, and the freedom is gone.

He ends the night in his cell, where exhaustion guarantees that he won’t dream of the faces of the people he has killed. Human or not, he’s taking life as the toll for having his. Before he falls asleep, Sendak comes by once more, but his gaze is not evaluating or even calculating. He’s smirking, a quirk of his lips that is full of promise.

Shiro is too tired for this shit, but he stares back, and then he glares back. Sendak’s lip curls even farther. “Vrepit Sa,” he says, but like everyone else, he’s talking at Shiro, not to him.

When he leaves, Shiro stares at his arm that they haven’t taken from him yet and remembers that his brightly colored opponent had two mechanical arms. He wonders how long he has before there isn’t anything left.

He sleeps restlessly for hours, maybe days, and when the druids come for him when he wakes, he can only try desperately to lock down the fear.

 

The reapers strap him down to a table, and one of them is opening the panels on his technical arm. He can see the glint of the saw, he closes his eyes and sees the opponent he took down in his mind, two hands of glowing violet.

“No, no! No! You took my hand, what more do you want?” He yells and struggles and makes sounds like a cornered animal. It’s not rage anymore, it’s just fear, raw and primal.

The Galra above him is not looking directly at him, but speaking to somebody else on the sidelines. “Stop! I want him awake enough to feel this.”

Shiro expects pain, braces himself, but the groan comes from the doctor or soldier that is there with them. He hears the thump of a body slouching to the floor. The edge of panic is a hammer, striking blunt and fast. The Galra that is there is looking at him now, Shiro notices how this individual looks sleek, angular almost, but it’s his gaze that is pointed, voice sharp.

For the first time since he was captured, a Galra is speaking to him, and not just at him. “Wake up. Zarkon has located the Blue Lion of Voltron on your planet Earth. You must get it before he does.”

 _Zarkon, Galra, empire,_ his mind is spinning, the terror subsiding. _Earth, Blue lion, Voltron._ His mind may be spinning, but the Galra is busying himself with something. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve planted a bomb to cover your escape,” he speaks, and there is urgency that Shiro is only beginning to comprehend. “Get to a pod. Now!”

“Who are you?”

The stranger is still urgent, but there is pride that shows in the broad carriage of his shoulders, the stance he chooses to take. “I am Ulaz,” and then the urgency replaces the noble tone, “Now, come on. Zarkon will know that I released you, so I must disappear. But, if you survive, go to the coordinates on your arm, the Blade of Marmora is with you.”

 _The Blade of Marmora, Arm, Ulaz._ There is so much he wants to ask, but it’s all happening so quickly. _Why are you helping me?_

It doesn’t register that he’s spoken it out loud until Ulaz answers. “As a fighter, and a leader, you give hope. Hurry, Earth needs you.”

“We all do.”

And for the first time since that fateful day, Shiro is not alone.

He’s got Ulaz. The Blade of Marmora, whoever they are, wherever they are, are with him. Shiro is not by himself, not the golden boy on the golden pedestal, not the singular champion. He is racing through the hallways of the enemy ship, he is thankful that he’s memorized the routes the sentries follow. He is racing toward a pod.

Shiro is escaping. He has help and he is going toward Earth and never coming back. That help set off an explosion though, and that explosion is tearing through the ship, and he’s in a pod, and he’s set for earth, and then it’s all a little hazy. The explosion rockets through, and it’s force overtakes him. There is a pain in his head and then there is nothing. The details are fuzzy, _Earth, Galra, Zarkon. Earth, empire, blue sky. Earth, arm, lion. Earth, aliens, Voltron._

 

_Earth._

 

It’s been nearly a year since he’s seen it, but he wakes on its surface. He’s strapped to a table and he’s realing, but this are not the reapers he knows as villians. They are not in shades of violet with glowing yellow eyes. They are in earth tones, browns and flesh pinks and mocha, _earth tones._ Earth!

He’s yelling now, and it parallels his time on Kerberos, yelling for the Galra to believe  him, _“We come from a peaceful planet, we mean you no harm. We’re unarmed.”_ Now it’s “You have to listen to me! They destroy worlds!” He’s near hysterical. “Aliens are coming.”

He needs them to understand, he recognizes Iverson and latches onto trying to get the words out “--We have to find Voltron.”

It’s no use though, Shiro may as well be yelling into the abyss, because the technicians have found his arm and wants to put him under. There are so many reasons Shiro doesn’t want to let them, but there’s no time.

He feels a familiar shake, registers a blast or explosion with the experience of a veteran, and it doesn’t matter if it’s shock, shockwaves or the drugs, because he’s under again.

 

Something is different this time, and Shiro knows it. He can breath in the subtle scent of earth instead of the stench of his own night sweats and antiseptic. Shiro doesn’t feel the desperation in waking, he isn’t being startled out of slumber, hungry and hurt and cold.

He’s on a couch inside a building that’s weathered time and sandstorms but the looks of it. Across from him is Keith, curled up in a chair, with a blanket draped over him, looking like he didn’t intend to fall asleep at all. There are no restraints, and he’s the feeling of safety and warmth is sending him back to sleep again. Keith is here, he flew across the sand to get him.

It doesn’t matter at all that Keith didn’t fly to a far off moon for Shiro, it only matters that he’s here now. Shiro doesn’t know yet that Keith searched the stars, and caught a falling one. For now, he’s not alone, and that is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was by far the most difficult to pen resulting in long time coming, but I think it was worth it.


	6. The Nihilistic Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every time, I will find you. Every time, I will bring you home.

   F. The Nihilistic Abyss

When Shiro leaves, it’s not a big deal. Keith has sat in class and stared out the window before, when Shiro was on earlier trips to closer moons. This is the farthest the Garrison has ever sent any of its pilots, so the entire platform is abuzz with chatter about their Star Pilot. Keith shrugs most of it off. It’s good chatter, students want to be him, students want to date him, although it quickly becomes certain that Shiro’s relationship status is slightly ambiguous to the general public. Adam walks through the halls, carries himself with resolve and doesn’t live in the rooms where ‘Shirogane’ hangs on the plaque of the door. It’s enough to stir the rumour mill, and it’s enough for Keith to realize that while Adam might have spoken to him about it, he hasn’t spoken to anyone else. The general public can’t seem to agree about whether or not Adam attended the launch. Keith knows that Adam wouldn’t go, but he might have been on the fringes somewhere.

It’s a couple months in when Keith realizes he’s just going through the motions and resolve hits him like a truck. He might not be following Shiro’s recommendations about making friends, but he’s following his footsteps everywhere else.

_“I’ll be here when you get back, and I’ll go with you next time.”_

He can’t afford to not be here, to get kicked out over something small or because he couldn’t keep his own temper in check. The gym is his second home, the simulator is the first. Academically, he’s just okay, but his ability to fly the simulator and his general compliance with the rules and regulations makes it so that his small issues with attitude and authority can be overlooked by some.

What can’t be overlooked is talent, and he gets moved into a more advanced flight class for fighter pilots, it’s a chance to see a familiar face, although he still can’t decide if it’s a welcome one. He knew Adam taught classes, but it’s different to know than it is to be witness to it, subject to it even. Luckily Adam is a teacher that believes in being firm and fair, it’s almost easy to feel at ease as he goes over controls and stratagem directly benefiting a fighter pilot. Adam completely believes that the forces are stronger together, and the needs of the many exceed the needs of the individual. It’s tough because Keith believes himself to be a lone wolf, he even hands in his first group project papers by himself.

Adam gives him one third of the possible grade, stating he did his work excellent, but he may need to encourage the other members of his group to work harder. He’s livid, but it’s hard to argue with that logic. He does better next time.

He never gives up on hitting the practice mats in the gym, although with the lack of partner, he finds the sandbags both more and less satisfying. They don’t talk back, like Shiro, they don’t tell him to tuck his elbow in, bend his knee, settle his weight in the balls of his feet. They don’t talk back, but they do have a decisive, satisfyingly firm stance when he hits. In the late nights between his strategy and tactics class, he finds the time to let out his anger. _Patience yields focus_ sounds clear in the back of his mind, and it’s not his voice that he hears. It brings clarity.

 

Once a month, a sense of obligation guides him down to the garage. His feet feel a pull like a magnet and he finds himself with cloth and wax in hand. Shiro isn’t supposed to be gone for very long, but Keith closes his eyes and remembers the hum of the engine, and the purr when Shiro leaped her off that cliff and he thinks that Shiro would appreciate his bike to be in good order when he comes back.

The place in his heart where Shiro lives is lonely and cold. Keith is grounded while his friend is far away in the stars, his father is among the stars and his mother is as mythical as the night sky. Somewhere between hitting the mats and hitting the books he finds himself sitting up on the roof, looking up and wondering where Shiro is.

 

He should be past halfway to Kerberos by now, passing the few rings still left around Saturn and off to that distant moon. Like the bike, he finds himself out there every week, and eventually he finds he’s not alone.

“We used to sit up here, when everything was golden, when we were just friends,” Adam reminisces.

“Professor…?” Keith is surprised to hear him talk, for the last three weeks Adam has sat in total silence. Adam draws his knees up to his chest and is pulling off his glasses. Small tears glitter in the stairwell lights. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

Keith just stares at the ground awkwardly, wondering what really happened between Adam and Shiro, even though he probably knows better than anyone else.

“I miss him,” Keith says, he’s not really sure what else to say, “He’ll come back.”

“Not for me,” Adam says, and the tears are long dry but in this light Keith wonders how old he really is, because he looks wizened and ancient in the lamplight. It’s as if his outsides are reflecting what he feels like on the inside. “He’ll be here, but he’ll never be mine, and I’ll never be his, I’m not sure he really knows it, but I do.”

“I won’t settle on somebody who won’t put me first,” and he chuckles here, “Sorry, I just, wasn’t sure on it until I said it out-loud. Now that I’ve said it though, It’s real and I know how it is. I don’t think his first love is the stars, I think it’s flying. You never forget your first love you know.”

The light from the night sky glimmers in his eyes now, and he winks at Keith, still cheeky, still Adam. “No, I don’t think you can.”

They sit in silence following that last thought, courtesy of Adam. They sit in silence for several nights in a row, and then for another week. Keith starts bringing a lamp and a book to study. Adam closes his eyes and naps and it’s far too comfortable for people that have far too little in common.

Everything is quiet, Keith knows he can do this. He can do this for Shiro, but everything is quiet. Everything is always quiet before the storm.

 

Iverson doesn’t pull him out of class that fateful afternoon. Adam doesn’t ask him to stay a moment after or catch him in the hallways. Adam doesn’t even come to class that day, there is a substitute instead. It would be unremarkable if Adam had ever missed a class before. At the end of the day he attends the assembly that he and all the cadets have been asked to. He find out just like everyone, he finds out with everyone, and just like that the storm rolls in.

“There has been an accident with the Kerberos mission.”

_No._

“We have lost contact with the spacecraft. It has been surmised that the craft herself has been destroyed.”

_Shiro!_

“Investigation into this tragic event has yielded that this was a pilot error on the part of Takashi Shirogane.”

The collective whispering and whine of the auditorium is all just white noise to Keith, who can hear the thunder of anger rising to the surface.

_Pilot error, no. Shiro would never._

“What happened?” Someone calls loudly, but the speech is practice and continues on without interruption.

“Investigations will continue to ensure that this never happens again but until such a time that I can disclose the full results of our investigation, know Takashi Shirogane had concealed details of an overlying medical condition and the fate of his crew and his ship rested entirely in his less than capable hands.”

_No._

Keith knew of the condition, knew that Shiro would have done his best anyway and even his worst would not have allowed the ship to go down. There were no pictures or audio to go with the conference despite the ship being equipped. Where they just keeping the details quiet? What actually happened?

 

Instead of going to class, Keith decides to take matters into his own hands. He haunts the door of Iverson’s office, determined to receive answers. The administration turns him away but he barges in anyway.

Keith, a cadet of little importance and little restraint now that Shiro is gone, barges right in.

“There’s no way Shiro made that mistake. Medical condition or not. What proof do you even have? Do you have the black box? Do you know what happened? Have you even sent out probes for survivors?!”

“Cadet, you forget your place. I understand you are grieving but this is not an appropriate action and if you do not leave this office right now there will be consequences.”

Let it not be said that Iverson is unfair or unjust, but to Keith, through the lenses of anger and abandonment and loss, nothing was fair anymore and he no longer cared.

“No--This isn’t right, this wasn’t, isn’t, Shiro. I will find what you are not saying!”

Keith takes a swing anyway but Iverson raises his hand to block it.

“Cadet, effective immediately you are expelled from the pilot program.”

“Fine. I’ll fly without you, I’ll find him.”

Keith uses his arm to sweep the desk of all the papers, pieces scattering.

“You have sixty minutes to pack your things and get out, Keith.”

He huffs, he slams the door, but he packs his things. When he leaves he takes the keys to Shiro’s red hovercraft.

“I’ll find him,” he repeats.

 

What Keith does find is the old desert shack he grew up in. It’s got more cobwebs and dust than he recalls, but it’s still home. He’s not sure his parents ever stood out in the sand and bought the place, it always seemed like maybe they built it or took it by squatters’ rights. His dad had a job, records, but he’s yet to find any trace of his mother aside from a mysterious knife, left behind just for him.

He wonders sometimes, what kind of a life did she think he’d lead when all that she left behind is a weapon. What kind of life did she lead?

Keith brings out large bulletin board and puts it up on the wall in the main room. On the top he scratches a few words. ‘Patience yields focus,’ is his guide now that he is all alone in the search for his missing friend, he brother at arms, and the only man who has ever made him feel like he belonged anywhere.

In the weeks to follow, he keeps up his practice even though he has no mat and no partner. He finds a camera and he covers the bike in grease and canvas (in case anybody recognizes it) and he takes on odd delivery jobs from the nearby town for a bit of credit and takes to trapping some of the local rodent population for when he doesn’t get enough jobs.

Without the resources of the Garrison, it’s hard, dull and lonely work. He rides into the desert without aim sometimes and he hears the whispers.

At first he thinks it’s just the wind, but he quickly knows it’s not. They guide him to a cave, and he’s lucky to have dragged along his camera. It’s full of lion drawings. Maybe from a time when lions roamed free? Did lions roam this place? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. So he takes only pictures, leaves only a trail of dust as he whirls out of there on the bike.

He’s compelled to turn and snap a shot of the cliffs that feel like they are closing in behind him.

 _Here,_ the wind seems to say. So he comes here often.

 

Keith is standing in the cave, knife in his belt, fingers next to the lion tracings, wracking his brain for what they mean, when he knows.

 _Voltron._ All of this, is for _Voltron._

He completes the bulletin board of conspiracies. Among the feelings and whispers of Voltron, he swears that he gets a sense of home. He has a time, a date, a place, now he just has to be patient.  

  


Keith is grouchy, and for good reason. He has four more people than he intended to feed this morning holed up in his conspiracy shack. The last of the pancake mix till have to do.

Last night was a mess, on Shiro’s shiny red bike he ventured out and found him, rescued him even, from the clutches of the Garrison, delirious and calling out things that last year, Keith might have attributed to a pain episode, but this year, seemed like the desert herself was welcoming back the last pieces of the puzzle.

It’s not his fault he doesn’t remember any of the names of the people he picked up, though it seems one of them knows his. He’s been busy and alone all this time. The smallest one almost seems familiar but he can’t quite place him, and he’s too distracted to try. There are sleeping bodies all over, most of them on the floor, the big guy in the chair, Shiro on the couch, it’s surreal.

 

The Garrison cadets won’t be able to go back over this either, so it seems, for them moment, they’re all in this together. It comes up that the small one, Pidge, says that he’s found signals leading to Voltron, and Shiro seems willing enough to go along with it, and with what he’s heard in the desert, none of it is nearly as crazy as it could be.

So they set out, and they find the Blue Lion, and for whatever reason, the alien spacecraft takes a shine to the loud one, called Lance, (and that seems just a little familiar to Keith) and then they’re really off.

Shiro seems contented enough although Keith can tell he’s a bit uncomfortable. He hasn’t had time to ask about the arm in detail, and he’s not sure he really wants to know. The lion takes them to a castle, so far beyond stories and their wildest dreams that Keith has to deny himself the urge to pinch himself, because all of this seems so surreal.

On the surface it’s a magical fairy tale about five unlikely hero characters that get swept through space to a far off magical land with a beautiful alien princess and her attendant, ten thousand years old and counting. She calls them Paladins, and it sounds so much more romantic than Keith could ever describe it. Shiro looks content and Pidge even cracks a small smirk. Lance preens under the attention of the princess. It’s a legend, a prophecy, a tale that nobody would believe back home.

 

Keith is a bit more of a realist and as he lays in a room all his own, nicer than he’s ever been in, he knows what wasn’t said. They’re not the best and the brightest come from all over the galaxy to pilot these amazing lion shaped war machines, they’re just all they have. Not the best man for the job, but the only man. The big bad that they’re up against has a ten thousand year head start, and make no mistake, this isn’t an adventure, it’s war. A small part of Keith says that he just got Shiro back, it’s foolish to risk him again, but the bigger part of Keith knows that it doesn’t matter, he said he’s stand by his side, and now he can.

 

The princess of this story isn’t just beautiful and serene, she’s as fierce and passionate and as angry as a thunderstorm. The castle turns out to be a ship and the Paladins are not yet the embodiment of destiny. They all decide to go along with it anyway. When the thrill of doing missions and collecting all five lions is over, domesticity seeps into the spaces between missions and importance.

Pidge tinkers with everything technological and mechanical, and often enough, he takes the big guy with him. The way he talks occasionally reminds Keith of Matt, but then the obsession of finding Dr. Holt and Matt creeps into the conversation and a vision of a distant time when Matt had showed a young girl around the labs clues Keith in. He doesn’t say a word to Matt’s sister though, it’s not his secret to tell.

The big guy’s name is Hunk, although it takes Keith a bit to remember, as he’s not excellent with names, if he’s not with Pidge or Lance in his downtime, he’s in the kitchen. The food options are highly limited to a green goo that serves as sustenance but while Keith doesn’t complain overly, he also doesn’t tell them about his time eating rats when he was out of food and credit.

Lance spends his time trying to flirt with the princess, and ‘trying’ would be the operative word, Princess Allura’s eyes might crinkle in amusement but she does nothing to indulge or acknowledge it. When they aren’t training or questing, Lance, to no one's surprise, hangs out with hunk and lays around. To Keith’s surprise, Lance, at least when he’s laying flat out on the floor, seems to have an odd penchant for philosophy. It’s very, very rare, but sometimes he says things that are very, very wise.

“Do you think the universe picked us because we were in the right place at the right time? Or because we are part of a bigger calling? Like fate.” Says Lance, strung out on the floor or the deck, gazing at the stars, speaking so quiet the Keith is shocked when he realizes who said it.

“No, I think we’re all just too stubborn to not be involved,” Keith mutters.

If Lance hears him, he makes no indication and Keith finds himself wandering to Shiro's quarters instead of his own.

“Can I come in?” He asks.

Shiro smiles, “of course. What’s up?” He pats the bed in an invitation to sit.

“How’s your arms?” Keith asks.

“Honestly, the pain and discomfort, it’s worse then when I was captured, but that could be the lack of steroids and experimental medicine. I’m not sure you noticed, but I lost one of them too. Got a replacement yeah, but there’s a lingering ghost pain, and there is a sense of awareness I guess in this Galra one. I can’t feel things I touch quite the same anymore.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“I mostly just want to forget. If I’m honest,” Shiro sighs.

“Ok, well if you do want to talk, I’m here,” Keith says.

Shiro’s hand is a comfort in its familiar place on Keith’s shoulder. If he was feeling lost, it’s very grounding.

 

Keith doesn’t do down time very well, at one point he tries to find the pool but then things get carried away and the castle tries to kill them with an infection from their only POW, taken upon his defeat and their only real victory as Voltron to date. Shiro goes mad and launches the now defeated Sendak into space and it seems like the right thing at the time, but it will come back to bite them.

Inside the sanctuary of Shiro’s room, they talk of all the things to come and all the things that have been. It’s not perfect but it’s close, Shiro is there when Keith finds out about the rebel Galra- The Blade of Marmora, and his own Galra heritage. He’s there when Allura turns up her nose. During the time they struggle with Zarkon constantly tracking them through thick and thin, across the universe, Shiro’s still there.

Shiro’s on the ship when Keith leaves it with the disgruntled princess, fearing that he’s putting them all in danger, and Shiro’s on the ship when he returns.

When they enlist the Blade of Marmora, when they form the plan with a mad alien genius named Slav that they sprung from a Galra prison, Shiro is terribly annoyed at the frustrating personality that is Slav, but it doesn’t matter, he’s still there.

It comes time to fight Zarkon then, and it’s valiant, they form Voltron, Shiro at the head, and they take him down. Keith in his red lion is there for that, when finally Shiro grasps exactly what it is he needs to do, and the radiance transcends corporeal form and they are all one with their lions, for just a single moment. Shiro most of all, is there.

Zarcon is defeated, and it’s glorious.

Keith can’t help but feel a tremor of something ominous, and when they open the helm, Shiro is not there.

Again.

Keith declares that they will find him, he will find him. _He will always find him._

 

With Shiro’s departure, natural or not, Keith echos what Shiro had asked of him, recently, though it feels so long ago. He asked Keith to lead, and so he takes that rage and anger at Zarkon and throws it at his son, come from the woodwork to cause chaos. He throws it at Lotor. It goes poorly.

He sits in the Black Lion and simultaneously the thoughts that _Shiro wanted this for him_ , and that _if the Black Lion comes to his call, it means Shiro is… gone,_ are all he can see. The hum of the engine of the Black Lion, the lights blinking into operation, near makes him scream. In the dark of the night, curled up in Shiro’s bed, remembering all those long ago conversations, he sobbs. Last time he knew where to look. Now he has Voltron and not a single clue.

The team is sad and upset at the loss of Shiro, but they also are pragmatic, they know the fight isn’t over. The fight is all Keith has, Lotor is just another piece of Zarkon that must be eliminated. He doesn’t care what the cost is, Shiro was lost for this regime, he will end the Galra Empire anyway he can.

In the end, for Keith the loss of Shiro leaves his patience in shambles and his focus weak. The anger doesn’t subside until his recklessness almost costs him the entire Voltron team, sweeping into a trap that Lotor has carefully set. As bold as Zarkon was, his son possess a natural cunning and it’s dangerous in combination. Keith sees it for what it is, a devastation that will keep laying waste to the places they need to protect.

His anger withdraws to sadness and it’s then he feels it in his heart. Shiro.

The Black Lion is still calling for him, and it has found him yet.

Keith’s relief is palpable, he can taste it on his tongue. He’s been sleeping on Shiro’s empty bed for days, crying himself to sleep. That first night Shiro is back, Keith sleeps in the chair next to his bed, similar to their first night in the shack in the desert. Shiro being watched over by his vigilant paladin. Keith doesn’t know why it’s always Shiro who is injured, and missing, and not him, he doesn't deserve this.

 

Far too soon, it’s the precipice of war and alliances, it’s like playing chess on a board that stretches across planets and asteroid belts and encompasses all the known things in the universe, and some unknown and wild as well. Zarcon may be defeated, but Lotor is fresh, the creatures known as druids do not just spend their days wandering gladiatorial prisons, they also cast a dark light in the inner circle of the Galra Empire. The crown jewel of the druids had Zaron’s favour, the witch Haggar. In the moments between the chaos, Keith feels unsure as being the leader of Voltron when Shiro in all his gallantry is back. The princess had joined the fray of Paladins in his absence, the attendant Coran guiding the castle, Shiro the strategist guiding from the helm. Keith knows where Shiro belongs though, even if Shiro himself doesn’t.

“The Black Lion is yours, she never did belong to me, not like Red who called to my heart Shiro. She listens to me, yes, but because of you. Won’t you take her back and fly? Your first love was always flying.”

“No Keith,” Shiro would say, stern and unyielding. “I meant what I said, get along with her, you’re her paladin now.”

There were plenty of moments that Shiro seems just a little off, not quite all there, Keith attributes it to not feeling sure of his place on the team, and his most recent stint with the Galra which has left him with less of a cool head and much more quickly irritated. It also seems that occasionally Shiro is just a little slow or puzzled, like his memory recall is in front of him and just slightly out of reach.

“Hey Shiro, how are the nerves holding up?” Keith asks, one night in Shiro’s room.

Shiro shrugs, “I’m not nervous about it.”

“Huh,” Keith tilts his head a slight to the left, leaning up against the wall, his arms crossed. In his red jacket with his unkempt hair he looks like a puzzled delinquent. “I meant the nerves and chronic pain and fatigue in your arms, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but are you okay?  You seem a little distracted.”

“Oh,” Shiro stares down at the floor, the ends of his shoes touching as he sits in his usual spot on the end of his bed. The rooms are nice, but small enough that furniture space is limited. Furniture is also limited to what the castle already has and time to shop for more than essentials (like the flat disks that power the telleduv) is non existent. “Honestly, I don’t really notice it, I remember what it felt like, but I haven’t felt it in some time, not recently that I can remember.”

It seems Shiro can’t remember a lot of things as vividly as before. At least not the ones that were more distant to begin with.

The most concerning one that Keith finds is Adam.

“You know, I’m not sure he wants you to know, but Adam was there the night you left for your mission.” This time they are all alone in the kitchen, not the Keith minds if anyone is eavesdropping, it won’t mean a thing to them.

Shiro’s eyes are glassy. “Adam?” he asks.

“Yeah, he was there,” Keith says. Shiro looks down at the table, and at first Keith thinks that he just doesn’t want to talk about it because it hurts too much. Shiro’s brow draws in and he samples the word again, like he can't quite put his finger on who Adam was. “Adam,” it’s barely a whisper and it strikes Keith as not quite right, but it’s Shiro so it’s okay, it’s probably just all the stress recently.

That night Shiro dreams of a man with a love of the stars and a love of Shiro and a feeling of hurt. He tells Keith, and Keith just smiles and doesn’t explain. “Adam,” he confirms. There isn’t time for anything more though, Keith is beginning to step away from the spot he thinks Shiro needs to get better, and as he withdraws further from the limelight, he ends up in the shadows.

 

The Blade of Marmora is important work for Keith, and now that he knows a little more about his lineage, his mother’s knife is his only connection to the family of warriors she held dear, some days he feels more like he belongs to the Blade and less and less to Voltron.

It eats at him. There isn’t a lot of time for the moments in between anymore. It’s the mission after mission, trying to keep being there for everyone.

“You can’t keep running away Keith, it worked this time, but what about next time, and the next, Voltron is important,” Shiro says. “We are a symbol of hope, but we need everyone on board.”

“You can’t be in two places at once dude,” Lance says.

Hunk shrugs. “A man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do, but you kind have to pick one.”

“It’s okay Keith,” Pidge gives his the smallest of smiles. “Family is everything.”

Allura sounds more indignant than wise. “Look, it’s us or them Keith, but don’t think you can do both.”

At first Keith does think he can do both, but between Shiro’s odd temper and Alura’s stern attitude, he realizes that they might be right. He can’t do both, and he’s not made for the spotlight, so he withdraws to the Shadows.

He takes missions so often for the blade that he is barely around anymore. Keith hangs up his bright and pristine red and white armor for the black, dark greys, and eerie glowing violet of the Blade of Marmora. As he walks away, Lotor slithers into the cracks of their circle like a snake, and with the ceremony to crown the Emperor of the Galra on the horizon, he convinces Shiro at least to lend him the support of Voltron.

“I can change them from within,” Lotor tells them, and Shiro believes him. Keith is far away though on a mission of his own, setting the explosive devices to interrupt the ceremony.

Kral Zera it is called, and Keith is left alone with a mess as the other agents leave, desperately trying to disarm the bombs in case they would hurt him.

They have a few moments between missions. Keith is angry that they would choose to show up when the blades had it under control. Shiro is just as upset that Keith was there and not here to begin with. When the tension snaps it’s just words, and then its Keith launching himself at Shiro in his tiny room where things are quickly knocked over.

Then it it’s all  fists, and then when they are exhausted and the room more than re-arranged, it’s more words.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Lotor is not somebody you can side yourself with!”

“You don’t get to say that, you’re never here!”

“I don’t belong here!” Keith yells, and then everything is quiet, he’s stopped trying to subdue Shiro on the floor, and is now just sitting on his chest, straddling the bigger man with the ease of a fighter. His hands are balled into fists and he’s trying not to think of the tears that are gathering in the corner of his eyes.

“I don’t have a place here,” Keith repeats, his voice trembles with sadness this time and not fury. “Not really. I used to be the Red Paladin, your right hand, and then I was the Black Paladin, the unlikely leader. Now, I don’t know. I’m Keith, just Keith.”

“No,” Shiro’s brow is furrowed again, but his eyes are clear. “You’ll never be _just_ Keith, just like I will never stop believing you. I can’t change your mind? Would you stay? I can give you back the Black Lion, she’ll always heed your call.”

Keith unfurls his hands so they are flat against Shiro’s chest, he can feel some of Shiro’s scars beneath the thin shirt he plans on wearing to bed. “I don’t want the Black Lion Shiro. I don’t want to be the Black Paladin. I want to find out what it is to be human, to be Galra, to be me. I want to go be a part of the blades, really a part of them, and not just a part timer there.”

“Nothing I say is going to convince you is it?” Shiro closes his eyes and let his head rest against the floor.

For a brief moment he imagines what it would be like to lean forward and kiss Shiro for himself, as a thank you, but it’s not the right time.

Instead he just says it, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Shiros eyes are open wide now.

“For being there for me. I promise I’ll come back, one day.”

“Don’t die on me Keith.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

 

Keith gets called for a mission to help an important deep cover operative out of their sensitive situation and that’s the last conversation that Keith has with Shiro for a few years.

Everything about getting the operative out of their situation goes wrong, he lets them take over quickly as he realizes that compromised or not, the have experience that he doesn’t and clearly are better aware of the situation. The weapon that she’s protecting ends up being unleashed to devour it’s creator in fit of uncontrolled, wild rage, a stroke a of creativity from the older agent that allows them to escape. Of course, as Kolivan, the leader of the blades, must already know, this agent is one who is aware of Keith, or at least knows of his existence. She reveals her face, Galra but noticeably more smooth and less severe than any Galra Keith has yet met. It’s not a shock, but then she reveals her secret, that his blade is her heirloom and in fact, her name is Krolia, and she is his mother.

The time for reunions is short now, but they are cast into another dimension where the time for reunion is almost unbearably long. The catastrophe with the super-weapon has left them in a place where time passes differently and they are subject to deadly flashes of this universe’s sun, and waves of their pasts being paraded in front of them. They take refuge and Keith follows Krolia and her ideas of survival. If he was on earth, those methods of ditching their ship and seeking refuge on a giant whale creature with an odd space creature very much like a wolf and his knowledgeable but tight-lipped alien mother might seem like something out of a movie, but this wasn’t earth. This was the Quantum Abyss.

They shared visions of things that had happened, like his parents meeting, or things that would come to pass; Shiro, full of rage and violence. She sees Keith and his friends discover the Blue Lion.

“I had to leave to protect her Keith, I’m very sorry,” Krolia admits. “I love you and you father too much too much to have stayed and put you in constant danger. To put Earth, your home, in danger.”

Another flash shows Shiro leaping the cliff on the hover-bike, Keith pulling up at the last second.

“I told him I’d do it one day,” Keith smiles.

Krolia grins back. “Did you?”

“Of course,” _but he wasn’t there to see it._

Krolia weeps silently when she sees Keith standing at his father's grave, it can’t have been recent, Keith isn’t crying in the vision, and the tokens left on the grave are beginning to weather, flowers dry and the petals breaking down to blow in the wind.

Keith sees the moment Krolia leaves, and he keeps his comments to himself, it seems to intimate a gesture to disturb her peace, looking onward into the abyss with grief and acceptance.

They watch as Keith wanders through the garrison halls, not looking for trouble but finding it anyway, Shiro’s friends asking if he knows the names of his roommates.

Krolia is not shy to point out some of the things she’s noticed. “You don’t seem to have a lot of friends, until the paladins I mean.”

“You don’t seem to be able to tell Kolivan that you need a break,” Keith returns. He’s watched her come in bleeding from one mission begging Kolivan for the next.

They don’t talk for a while after that, but Krolia breaks first, “I wanted a distraction, I didn’t know if you or your father were safe. I just couldn’t stop, I’m not sorry, it was all I had, the Blades.”

“Well,” Keith starts, “Shiro was all I had too.” She doesn’t bring it up again.

The weeks stretch into months and Keith, as thrilled as he is to have his mother as his side again, finds he misses everyone. He misses Hunk and Pidge, laughing in the anti-gravity chamber and always ready for a tech fix or a game of any kind (but preferably the fantasy or video version.) For all he won’t admit it, he misses Lance and his terrible jokes, and his worse flirtations. Although the Princess isn’t as quick to dismiss those flirtations as she once was. The Princess and Koran are missed as well, her sharp gaze and quick judgement and kindness, and Korans ability to be both knowledgeable and absolutely infuriating at the same time had almost become enduring.

Without Shiro’s quiet strength, Keith learns to walk on his own. Krolia fights and trains with him, it passes the time, but it gives him a chance to know her all on her own, and he gains a respect for the warrior she is.

A vision comes, a flash from the desert this time, Keith and Krolia both know that it’s earth from the view. It’s the same ledge where the earlier vision of Shiro leaping off the cliff happened. This time, Shiro and Keith have their legs dangling over the edge, and they’re older then they are now. Keith can’t tell how old, but Shiro’s hair is snow white even though his face looks young, and the hoverbike beside them far newer and more advanced than the red one, the model reading G-21.7. The scene is set at a distance, so they can’t hear what’s being said. Shiro is surprised into laughter about something, and Keith reaches his hand up to turn Shiro’s face towards him, leaning up for a chaste kiss. It’s not quite the sunset fairy-tale, but it’s not something him and Krolia talk about after, although she stares at him with a teasing smile for at least a dobosh after.

Most of the other visions are mundane in comparison, though they do give each other a sense of who the other is without having to ask.

The cosmic wolf gets bigger, and Keith gets taller and fills out, even though there isn’t a bounty of food, Krolia gets softer, if only around the very sharp edges and then they find it, a planet, and a girl.

The land is the of the lost Alteans', Lotor’s last gamble and best kept secret, along with his obviously inevitable betrayal.

The girl is a curious and confrontational little thing, she seems so young although logically she can be that much younger than Keith. Her name is Romelle, and she has a ship and a warning to deliver to the Princess, so Krolia and Keith’s adventure takes another sharp turn.

Keith walked out, unsure and angry and trying to find his place in the world. He walks back in confident, older, and very much comfortable in his own skin. It gives Shiro pause, but Keith is unyielding until the threat has been dealt with.

Romelle is the hairpin trigger to bring back all of the suspicion back down on Lotor, it goes so well that something inside Shiro snaps and Keith can see it’s no longer Shiro attacking them, but rather something is in his head or somebody else in his body, because it’s not Shiro running off and taking Lotor and stealing their ship. It’s a bigger threat than Lotor himself at the moment.

For the others he was gone a brief moment in time, but it’s been two years since Keith flew the Black Lion. She awakens to his call like it was yesterday and as Shiro escapes with Lotor through a wormhole, Keith flies, really flies like the star pilot Shiro thought he might be and makes it through to follow with uncanny timing.

Lotor is delivered to the witch, Haggar. This doesn’t surprise Keith. What surprises Keith is the place Shiro takes him to. It’s a facility of Shiro clones, and this corrupted Shiro intends it to be their deathbed.

“I’m not leaving here without you,” Keith says.

“Actually neither of us are leaving,” Shiro replies, eyes glowing violet.

They fight and somewhere in the fray Keith discovers the unit has its own atmosphere because he’s shocked he can breath when his helmet gets knocked off. Shiro is ruthless and Keith is held back by his own hesitation to fight. Keith is on the ground, with Shiro’s face looming over, his sword pressed against Keith’s Marmoran blade.

“Shiro, please,” Keith appeals, “You’re my brother.” _You are all I have._

Keith remembers, and he feels love. He knows that it’s true, it’s every quiet moment, it’s Shiro and Keith sipping coffee at the garrison and sitting on the roof with the stars. It’s in all the loud moments, playing games with friends and forming the sword of the Red Lion, Shiro’s voice in his ear. It’s love in the impossible moments, Keith finding Shiro on Earth after so long in the stars, dragging Shiro’s body back onto the Black Lion after he had been lost yet again. In this moment now- “I love you.”

“Just let go Keith,” but this isn’t Shiro, it’s not _his_ Shiro. “You don’t have to fight anymore.” _I do._ “By now, the team’s already gone.” _They're not._ “I saw to it myself.”

It follows the white hot pain as Shiro uses his arm to burn up the side of Keith’s face. Keith retaliates by removing Shiro’s arm in an act of desperation and calculated awareness. The infection must be coming from that arm. _I know you are in there Shiro_ , he thinks.

“Keith…” Maybe it really is Shiro, his mechanical arm is severed, but Keith isn’t sure if his heart is still as cold as steel. There isn’t time to think about it though, the facility is going down, the place is collapsing. Keith grabs Shiro by his human arm and he’s hanging by his sword. Dangling off the edge of the facility, hanging over the abyss of space with no prayers and no God and no real hope of survival.

He closes his eyes and holds tighter to Shiro’s hand, he will always find him, he won’t let go. This time they are together. Together, all alone, among the stars.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still cannon complaint, wasn't sure where this was to go after season 8, but I know now. This chapter was a bit long, but I'm still writing and I would love to hear a word of encouragement or even just a kudos. Thank you for reading.


	7. Hydra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is only one constant in space, and it's Keith.

G. Hydra

 

At the height of battle, Voltron is a colorful streak of light in the sky. Too bulky to really be graceful, but full of light and life and vigor and strength. In contrast, Zarkon’s suit of armor is the grey of war tanks and the purple of poison in children’s stories. The wings of Voltron shine with utility and purpose and Zarkon’s wings loom overhead like a macabre angel. Freedom of Expression and Military Regime in for one big final clash.

“This is our last chance,” Shiro calls from the helm. “Let’s finish this!”

Everyone has thrusters forward, the shout and growls from the pilots are a battle cry. Shiro’s flesh and bone arm tenses and shakes on the controls, a reminder that he’s not well. “Not now,” he whispers.

Everything flashes white for a moment, everything as he is reaching for victory. The bright sword of Voltron stabs into Zarkon’s mechanical war machine, and Zarkon’s arms reach up to grab the head of Voltron, the Black Lion, his former beloved vessel is held between his hands. Zarkon sends a shock wave through the helm and Shiro knows pain.

Pain for Shiro is an old friend and he isn’t caught off guard, the hum of affirmation echoing through the Black Lion as he lifts his beyard, his reclaimed weapon of old that he took from Zarkon, poetic in its use to bring Zarcon’s defeat. The sword that the Red Lion -Voltron’s right hand- manifests burns with power and an even brighter light. Keith pulls back and the sword hits its mark again. The com links are echoing with their screams of effort as Zarkon’s war machine goes off like a zyforge cannon; all glowing and purple with a vicious backlash. There are chunks of metal floating in space, the Lions have been split apart, the Paladin’s are panicking to organize and tow the Black Lion from the wreckage. Coran’s voice heard over the com links pushing for haste.

 

Shiro offers the vaguest hint of awareness, the feeling of peace and finality wash over him. He feels the tug of the lion being pulled back to the home, the castle. His beyard is left in its holding spot in the lion’s cockpit, but he doesn’t feel any concern.

His friends are here now, he feels the doors opening to let them in. “Shiro,” Keith is calling. They’re all there, standing in the empty cockpit when Lance says what they’re all thinking. “He’s gone.”

_Oh, so he is._

 

From then on Shiro mostly floats in and out of consciousness, he spends his time in a place that looks like the night sky is all around him. It’s different from all that time he spent alone in his cell, dreading the next encounter, and yet not being able to interact with anyone is just as lonely and cold as his time as the champion. There is no tremor in his muscles, no pain in this world beyond that of loneliness. He knows that the consciousness of the Black Lion is right there with him, but it’s not the kind of consciousness he can speak to.

The first time anything really happens is when Black Lion is needed, and the Paladins come one by one to see if they can wake the sleeping beast. Shiro knows when Allura walks in, praying to her gods that she can be blessed with this power, but it isn’t for her. Pidge wanders in with curiosity, but looks comically small in comparison to the larger ship. Hunk doesn't even try, there is not the slightest amount of desire to pilot the ship when he sits in the big chair. Within Lance he feels the slightest amount of interest, but the Black Lion slumbers on. In his heart, Lance wants the glory, but he also just wants everything to be okay, just like it was when Shiro was there.

Shiro has almost given up hope of Keith even entering the ship when Keith sullenly walks through the doors, sits in the seat and begs the universe that it not be him, that Shiro isn’t gone.

Shiro is gone though, he knows he’s gone, and Keith is the only constant Shiro has ever had in space.

“I know you wanted this for me Shiro, but I’m not you.” Keith’s hands reach out for the controls. “I can’t lead them like you.”

‘No, you’ll do better than me,” Shiro thinks desperately as the Black Lion wakes, lights coming to life under Keith’s weary gaze, and that’s when Keith finally knows what Shiro has known since the Paladins came to find him after Zarkon.

Shiro, is really, truly, gone.

Keith doesn’t know it but Shiro is there when he makes his first mistake, and his second and when he blunders through leading a team, and when he’d like Shiro to see him the least. In the times when he racks his brain to answer the question: _what would Shiro do?_

 

Shiro is there though when he starts to lead, becomes the man Shiro knows he could be if only he had the chance to move out of Shiro’s own looming shadow. He’s a better pilot than Shiro to say the least, and Shiro would call him the better man. It gets him through the stretches of time when all is quiet and it’s just Shiro and the Black Lion and all the time in the universe. It’s peaceful, but then that peace is interrupted by somebody new.

Keith has picked up someone in his travels, and this person, is Shiro, except it’s not. The body of not-Shiro sits in the cockpit of the Black Lion, reeks of an aura of wrongness, unnatural forces within, and begs the ship to let him sail the starry sea.

_They’re all in trouble, I need to help._

It’s an impostor, it’s not him, but his heart is still so similar that the Black Lion is moved and rumbles her opinion in a roar that sends the impostor Shiro out to fight in Keith’s ship. When they manage to form Voltron, he is more aware of all the Paladins without Keith to focus on. Lance is now to his right, Allura got her wish, Blue being the most relaxed of all the lions, he feels her in the connection, more sensitive to the nuances of the alchemy of the machine, not on the same wavelength, but much closer than New Shiro.

Lance, who is far more intuitive than the others, and is forced more to rely on instinct over practice and training almost feels like he’s right there with Shiro, even if he can’t see him or hear him at all.

Shiro doesn’t get it, but Keith doesn’t come back after that and the new Shiro is much more sharp around the edges. He waits, as it is all he can do, but he sees the Paladins across the astral plane, catching a glimpse of them for real, as danger on the planet Olkarion causes all of the Paladins to convene upon his place in the Astral Plane, they’re all there in front of him, but it’s like they’re all in AM radio and he’s able to only manifest in FM.

They’re really here, when it feels like he’s really there with him, he gives all of the power of spirit that he has, hoping it will be enough to save them. They’ll be gone from the plane in a moment, but Shiro helplessly indulges himself to reach out, just once. He stands in the circle of color, lends them his strength, ready to lend them his warning.

Pidge is gone in a flash of light, and then Allura, and then Hunk, and the only one left standing is Lance.

“Lance,” Shiro calls, “Lance, listen to me.” Maybe he can warn them, because he isn’t the Shiro flying the ship.

“What?” Lance asks, as he too is pulled from the world.

There goes his chance, almost bitterly he thinks, _Keith would know, Keith should know. Why isn’t he here, leading them?_

Shiro falls off into the abyss, walking only briefly when the team forms Voltron and goes through the white hole to Oriande. It’s only marked by a ripple of power. Allura and Lotor are seeking the secrets of ancient Altean alchemy on the fringes of the fabric of the Universe, and Shiro feels only a strange passing breeze and and uncanny feeling that someone else is here with him, perhaps another consciousness caught up in the soul of the Black Lion? He doesn’t get to explore that thought further, as he is made aware that somebody he hasn’t felt in awhile is here to pilot the Black Lion.

 

Keith burns with determination and fury, the kind that will burn itself out, one way or another. He’s beautiful and wild this time, not unsure, not blind with grief and madness, not struggling for a foothold in the storm. If he is here, and other Shiro is not, then something must have happened. Keith feels aged, but Shiro doesn't know how long it’s been, days or years. He sits down in the seat like it has always been his, not apprehensive the Black Lion will reject his cause, not a thought that the console might not light up for him and surge with power.  Nary a moment when he isn’t connected to a greater connection, forming Voltron to sail through the stars, aware that he needs to go further, be faster.

“Disband,” Keith calls, and then it’s as it should have been all those years ago. Just Keith, surging through the stars, Shiro all around him. The wormhole swallows them whole, wherever he’s going, wherever he needs to go, Shiro hasn’t given up on him, even if Keith doesn’t know it.

The ship surges a hefty amount of power, Keith leaves the ship, and the place he has found is his fighting ground, Shiro feels his emotions near the surface, has never felt this close to anyone. The place crumbles and even as Keith falls through space, freezing cold, other Shiro not breathing, the false atmosphere and gravity crumbling, Shiro calls to him.  

“Keith,” Shiro begins. “Keith, Keith.” It’s like a mantra or an echo.

“Where are you Shiro?” Keith is here to find him, has spent his life chasing Shiro across the universe, but there’s no body to find. “Show yourself!”

“I know this must be confusing to you,” after all, Shiro has known all along what Keith is only about to learn now, other Shiro only makes it more confusing.

“What is this place?” right, Keith wasn’t here when Lance and the others came, “Where are we? You-were trying to kill me! The others- you said you…”

Shiro finds it within his will to manipulate his spirit into the version of himself that Keith knows best. The Black Paladin, the former Champion, scars and metal Galra arm in full view.

Keith reciols just looking at his arm, and it hurts. It aches to see that lack of trust, but it’s not the time. “I’m not here to harm you,” he says, but it’s hardly reassuring. He can feel everyone of Voltron, consciousnesses safety cradled by fearsome lions faraway. “Everyone is fine,” even Keith, he knows, will be fine, but there’s more to it than that. Everyone else is fine, Keith and the not-Shiro body are dying in the cold heart of space. “Let me explain,” he begins, “The thing that attacked you, wasn’t me. Since my fight with Zarkon; I’ve been here.” Being here is difficult though, he knows it’s because Keith has lost consciousness, feels the giant maw of the Black Lion opening to swallow the floating bodies.

Keith’s eyes are wide and his confidence seems to shake like a leaf in the wind, all the fight leaving him in an single exhale, “...when you disappeared?”

Shiro isn’t sure if it’s rhetorical or not, but Keith deserves to know this much, “Yes.”

“I didn’t know where I was, how much time had passed. My physical form was gone. I existed on another realm,” affirmation. “I died, Keith,” confirmation.

Now Shiro is watching helplessly while Keith crumbles with the news, with the grief that he had never really come to terms with.

Keith is less prone to outrage as a default though, he closes his eyes for a moment, sword heavy at his side. “Is that where we are? In the Black Lion’s consciousness?”

Shiro doesn’t falter, brave to the last “I tried to warn the others about the imposter on Olkarion,” and to Keith it’s like he’s made of stars, glittering around the edges. Shiro knows his image is fading, “--but our connection was not strong enough.”

Shiro is only fading in Keith eyes because Keith is regaining his own consciousness, his body able to breath, his brain able to function. His voice echos where Shiro is, even if he cannot hear them. “You saved us.”

 

Keith has no time to reminisce, no time for anything but action, and he has always been a man of few words, letting his deeds speak more to his character than anything. Shiro is more awake than he has felt in a while, but also far more exhausted from reaching down the only connection he has that is strong enough to make himself really known.

The voices Keith can hear in the com lines are calls for help, Lotor is decimating the forces that are his friends, almost like a prayer, he asks with the tone of a command; “Shiro, I have to get to the Paladins. I need your help.”

“Shiro, Shiro,” he calls, “Shiro!” and Shiro answers, his hand coming to rest on Keith’s shoulder, for just a moment, they stand in the sea of stars and darkness and they stand together. “Keith, you can get to them, but you must see them first.”

Keith’s brow furrows, “but how?”

Shiro’s only slightly surprised how dense he can be, but maybe he just doesn’t remember what it’s like to be one with the lion, after all he seems to have been gone a long time. He almost rolls his eyes, though the trust in the machine, deus ex machina, came easy to Shiro, Keith has never been one to trust anybody or anything without a hard won honest-to-god fight. “See through the lion’s eyes. Patience yields focus.”

He’s standing there with Shiro, next to Shiro, and then he’s leaping off the cliff on the sands of earth, he’s jumping off the ship in the quantum abyss, all this Shiro feels and more, and Keith’s leaving one place where he fought for Shiro to another where he and Shiro will fight for all of them.

“I see them,” he whispers, but Shiro already knows, has already seen.

It’s back into the battle for the Black Lion, for Voltron, as he feels all of their energy combined and welling up like a spring of power around him. Lotor’s ship, like Zarkon’s before him is huge and terrifying and not at all a symbol of hope. Unlike Zarkon, he’s far faster and made only of necessary pieces, no strange extra wings, no symbols of Kings, and like Voltron he’s made of a comet that can traverse realities, weaving between their world and the rifts between others. They chase him right through a rift, even Shiro can feel the flood of quintecense, feel especially when Allura calls it up to pool in the Black Lion’s chest, the power flooding to meet Lotor head on. Channeling the quintessence allows Shiro to feel the exhaustion in Allura, the way that raw power and lack of training burns when alchemy in involved. He feels the guilt in Allura when she realizes that they have to leave Lotor behind, because it is too strong to ignore. He knows Keith feels the guilt too, but time has made him a better leader, willing not to chase to absolution.

Allura has not sacrificed everything she has just yet though, and Shiro feels the resolution echo through the cosmos as they sacrifice the Castle of Lions to close the unstable rifts in reality and space-time that their battle with Lotor has brought, and then Voltron disbands and he does not know what Allura feels after, for he is far too exhausted to try to remain with them.

 

Shiro drifts off again for a time. He’s not sure how much time has passed when he feels Allura again, she’s not reaching through her bond with the Blue Lion, with Voltron. This time she’s reaching out directly through the Black Lion, softly whispering to his soul.

Shiro allows himself, his spirit really, to be pulled from the Black Lion, and for a moment, he’s held inside Allura’s body, all of her grief weighs heavier than the Castle of Lions, than her Father, than the Alteans, than Lotor, than Shiro himself. She’s a being made of resolute sadness, and the most terrible sense of sacrifice. She doesn’t even know if holding Shiro will work, and still she tries. She has nothing left to lose in this moment but Shiro himself. She carries him to the battered and dying body of the unreal Shiro. Allura lets his consciousness slip between her fingers and into the physical form of some resemblance. Shiro feels the loss of his arm once again, feels that this body doesn’t quite match the way he looks now, hair turning entirely silver from his dances with death, the way he saw himself, as the hair turns, the scars begin to appear under the armor, not all of them, just the ones he remembers, the ones that mean something, the scars that make him, well, him.

He sees the sky first, and then a flash of yellow armor, and then Keith’s hand on his chest. Feels the rumbling roar of the Black Lion with his eyes shut, and then Red, followed by Yellow, Green and Blue joining together. Shiro hears the joyful calls of his friends, he opens eyes that feel slow and finds that Keith is holding him tightly in his arms, hardly the child he once knew, even if Shiro feels leagues older and tired himself.

“You found me,” he says, Keith turning to display a scar on the other side of his face that Shiro feels he should remember but doesn’t.

“We’re glad you’re back Shiro,” Keith smiles only the slightest, but Shiro sees it and it’s beautiful.

“Rest,” Allura says, and it’s so easy to do just that. He doesn’t feel when they put him in the healing pod but he does feel the memories begin to wash over him.

Some of the memories feel soft and familiar, Keith stealing his car, speeding away on his hover-bike, waking up to see him in the desert shack, back from the stars. He remembers his time as Champion, fighting for his life and they’re awful but they’re a familiar awful. He remembers Adam, with his sweet coffee and sweet kisses and notebooks full of constellations, more of an artist than a fighter most of the time.

There are some memories that he doesn’t quite recognize, a moment where Keith welcomes him back, hugging him fiercely and telling him that it’s okay, he’s found him, except it wasn’t really him, it’s Other Shiro, but he remembers. There’s a moment in the castle of Lions all of them playing a game, and Shiro unable to play anything other than the perfect Paladin, and he realizes that Other Shiro never knew he wasn’t Real Shiro. Keith stepping out of the ship, coming from the Quantum Abyss, older, and so strikingly handsome and he remembers being awestruck by the Blade of Marmora’s young apprentice. Shiro remembers being trapped inside a pod and woken to escape, to escape and find Voltron.

He recalls burning the scar across Keith’s face, unyielding, fierce and totally unable to give up on Shiro. It’s a little frightening to be honest, that total devotion. The memory is distant, but it’s there. There are all those years stuck in the Black Lion, unable to do anything other than hope, it’s awful and dark, and he’s not sure if he wants to face this Keith when he has nothing, has hurt him so badly. He hurt Adam, and he hurt Keith, who is he to stand by them now? He remembers Sendak, in his head, his awful consciousness, he remembers Sendak, talking at him and not to him, a caged prisoner, worthless. He feels it, worthlessness. He remembers Hagar, that abomination of a witch, taking control of his body, taking out his friends, leaving their ship with a virus set to destroy them. Worthless, and helpless, he nearly succumbs to the depression, the part of him that really wants to sleep ( _and never wake up._ )

“Fight, I won’t give up on you.”

Oh, that’s Keith. There’s Keith telling him to go to the stars, to be great, that Keith himself will chase that dream and find him. It’s Keith, saving him from the clutches of the Garrison, to pull him on the back of a speeder and off to safety. There’s Keith describing running across a distant planet, jumping off cliffs and piloting the Black Lion, sure that he can save Shiro. Keith jumping in the Black Lion and rushing across the stars, not to eliminate the threat of Shiro, but to save him. Holding his body as they slowly die, holding his breath as he calls Shiro and the Lion to save them, holding his combined body and soul when he wakes up for the first time in ears and sees what Other Shiro- no, what he, what Shiro saw when he walked back into their lives, towing his Galra mother and Cosmic space wolf along for the ride.

“Shiro, please, fight,” It sounds like Keith, and he’s crying. “You can’t do this to me again.”

It’s a shockwave to his system, like a dream that has been broken. He coughs, breathes, opens his eyes. “Keith…” did all of that really happen? “I was dreaming.” I was dreaming my whole life, even the parts I didn’t live, even the parts that overlap. “Keith, you saved me.”

“We saved each other.”

He reaches up to hug Keith and they don’t separate until everyone comes running, some faces overwhelmingly familiar and a few he only knows in passing, but he has him now, when he chuckles, his chest heaves and he feels it down to his bones, his arm might be missing, but the heavy feeling of constant pain and numbness, the sporadic tingles of fire, those are gone to this body. He feels welcome and home, down to his bones. His friends all around him, and Keith to his right.  
“It’s good to be back.”

 

Shiro, unsurprisingly, feels the most comfortable within the Black Lion, even if he can’t fly. The flying, he leaves to Keith. With the loss of his arm, it truly feels like he has passed on the spot of the Black Paladin, as he tried to do before. The Lions are spacious enough that they can each take a pilot and a few passengers, with Black and Orange having the most usable space and Green the least. Shiro and Krolia generally stay with Keith, though the Cosmic Wolf earns the name Cosmo and will move them from lion to lion as he deems fit. Most of the time, the Alteans fly with Allura. Romelle switches around frequently though, trying to get to know them all, and Shiro is glad that she doesn’t seem to hold his role in the debacle with Lotor against him.

Allura also doesn’t hold Shiro accountable for what happened with Lotor, not for delivering him to Haggar, not for the betrayal he was engineered to do.

 

“You wanted to talk to me?” Shiro asks, Cosmo has dropped him off in the Blue Lion and Allura is alone except for the sentient mice that lived in the castle.

Allura nods, “I had a question or two, yes.” She purses her lips together and admits, “I almost don’t know where to start.”

“The beginning maybe?” His eyes crinkle in amusement.

“Have you ever been in love?” Allura takes him by surprise. “I mean, because I thought I might have been, for a moment there, or maybe I was just very close to it, but also I’m not sure.”

Shiro finds the chair that Coran usually uses and Allura swings he chair to face him. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This must be very personal to you, I was just hoping you could share some advice, it seemed a better idea than asking, you know, say Pidge, or Lance.”

He nearly wrings his hands together before he realizes that he is missing one. “You don’t have to answer if  it’s too hard…” Allura trails off.

“No,” Shiro says, “It’s not that, Princess,” he tries to compose himself. “It’s not that at all Allura. It’s not easy to talk about though.”

“On Earth, I had someone. I loved him, maybe still do in a way, but I remember what it was like. It’s going to sound cliche, but I think, when you know, you know. If you’re questioning yourself if you were, maybe you weren’t?” He says. “...I’m sorry, that doesn’t make much sense, maybe it would be better to ask someone else.” Shiro’s smile is back with the smallest crook of his lips.

Allura returns the smile, her hands falling into her lap as her anxiety leaves her. “No, I think that mostly answers it, or at least, I feel better about it. Thank you Shiro, you have given me much to think about.”

 

Cosmo comes for Shiro a while after, dropping off Romelle (and dinner) in his wake, and bringing Shiro back to the Black Lion alone. Krolia isn’t anywhere to be seen, but that doesn’t mean she’s not around. The elder Marmoran blade is quiet in manner and sharp in mind and tongue, Shiro can see the resemblance in the man that sits beside him now.

“How’s Allura?” Keith asks.

Shiro shrugs, but the blunt and abrupt end of his shoulder loses some of the effect. “She’s questioning if she was in love the Lotor, I think.”

“Do you think she was?” Keith asks, then hesitates. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair, you weren’t really all, uh, there.”

“I remember, Keith, all of the memories from my body are still here,” Shiro. “It hasn’t come up, but I do remember, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry I pushed you away.”

“I’m sorry that I left, I just... I didn’t want to lose you,” Keith admits, his voice sounds small, and his eyes lower to stare at his lap.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asks. He rests his arm on Keith’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t have lost me.”

“I almost did though. If Allura hadn’t pulled you out of the Black Lion, if-”

Shiro interrupts, unwilling to go down this path. “She did though, I’m here.”

“I just,” Keith begins, a sigh shuddering though his body. “Maybe, this isn’t the best place for this conversation. Come with me.”

It occurs to Shiro that Krolia may be around and that Cosmo can pop in with guests or food at anytime. Keith checks the autopilot on the console and leads Shiro back to the storeroom that he has turned into his bedroom. He’s stretched out a kind of hammock and it strikes Shiro that his room is actually his old quarters, he has its own bed, but here’s Keith using the smallest storage room and the most temporary of military furnishings, like the Black Lion isn’t his home, his ship, his place in the world.

“Oh,” Shiro says, because he understands, the scarcity of the room makes it all clear. The storage boxes are the chairs, and the only personal items are his armor and a large pillow that must be for Cosmo. “You thought, that if you took the Black Lion, when I was still around, you thought you would lose me.”

“Shiro, you are a man of purpose, you need a job, you need a role, you’ve always been that way, the sky’s the limit.” Keith looks more unsure of himself than anytime Shiro can recall in recent memory. “I would never ask more than you can give, I couldn’t take this away from you, I couldn’t lose you again, but I did.”

“You found me though,” Shiro reaches out, unsure of how to handle this version of Keith, like he is nearer to a stranger than a familiar face. He’s taller even than Shiro remembers. His hand brushes across Keith’s face and Keith turns his head to let his hand fall into Shiro’s hand. Keith is stunning in this vulnerable state, soft and surrendering where Shiro knows full well that he is really made of fire. To see that flame of warmth under full control and so open is a privilege, not to be taken lightly. _He’s beautiful,_ Shiro thinks.

Shiro moves before he can really comprehend what he’s doing. He runs his thumb across Keith’s lips, unable to resist the urge to touch. “I will always find you,” It’s Keith who speaks, Keith who makes the first move, reaching up to press his lips to Shiro’s. It’s light and chaste, the ghost of what a kiss could be, what Shiro wishes it would be. Keith watches Shiro like a wary animal, ready to run at any sign of rejection, yet challenging Shiro in staying his ground. It’s made clear, the next move is all up to him, and Shiro finds that he wants this. He wants to know the man that has chased him across the stars, that counts his heritage somewhere between earthly and unearthly and in some moments comes across as downright ethereal. Shiro wants to know who he is, and Shiro wants to know what he tastes like.

Shiro reaches down to kiss Keith and that’s enough for the flame in Keith to rage like a fire as he reaches up, his hands pressing strongly against Shiro’s chest, and he kisses him back. He kisses like he’s drowning and Shiro’s his last breath, his mouth is warm and hot and open and Shiro’s eyes close and he lets himself for a moment imagine that they are safe and warm and at home and everything is going to be alright.

When they pull apart, Keith smiles, “This isn’t a good time, but it won’t ever be a good time until we get home.”

They decide not to tell anyone about it, because it’s strange and amazing just to have something all to yourself when you’re living in such extreme conditions as they have to. Only Krolia seems to notice and Shiro sees the appraising look she gives him as Keith stops sleeping in the hammock and mostly stays with Shiro, even Cosmo’s cushion shows up on the floor where Shiro’s larger quarters, where the Paladin’s cabin of the Black Lion is located.

 

They keep their secret behind closed doors, because it’s not a good time to put everyone off balance, and it’s one thing after another. They get captured by the pirates that were Lotor’s wild vixen generals, and they get rescued by the most balanced of his former generals. Axca is part Galra, but she’s also the most reasonable and logical of Lotor’s former associates, she saved Keith in a bad spot, as he saved her years earlier, and it has been _years_. She explains that it’s been a long time since anybody saw Lotor or Voltron, that it’s been three deca-thebes of time since anyone last saw them. Shiro’s rough math estimate puts them at five years out, but it’s difficult to say with his own warped concept of time. He’s not even sure how old he really is.

Time doesn’t get any less strange or warped for Shiro from there, at one point, Keith falls asleep fitfully and wakes talking about his time on a game show and Shiro is more worried about food poisoning than the fever he initially thought was happening. From there Shiro questions how much time really matters, aside from treasuring all and any of it you are allowed to have.

“What are you going to do when we get home?” Keith interrupts Shiro’s newfound philosophies with a question. They’re all alone in a moment of inisial quiet, but they’ve been awake for long enough that Keith voice sounds slightly weary.

“Well I think someone owes me a hoverbike race,” Shiro grins. “Also I could use a new arm.”

“Do they? I wonder who?” Keith innocently tilts his head to the side. “I’m sorry there is nothing I can do about your arm.”

“It’s more Hunk or Pidge’s territory to be honest, and it’s not like we have the supplies or med bay to really fix it. You did what you had to, and I’m proud of you for that,” Not for the first time does Shiro wonder if their relationship can survive their past.

“You’re thinking too hard again, Shiro.” Keith accuses, and that’s the end of it, and the silence is not uncomfortable as Shiro tries not to think too much about anything.

 

There’s something beautiful about the darkness and the stars all around them. It’s always dark in space but they try to keep up a false schedule of night and day, although Krolia has become fond of rushing them all out of bed to fight simulated enemies in a way that even Allura cannot compete with. When Keith yawns and stretches, and gets up to leave, Shiro almost follows Keith back to his room. Krolia stays lounging in the front of the ship, no doubt to wake them later.

“Not tonight, please, he’s exhausted,” Shiro says, and he knows that Krolia knows.

Her expression could almost pass for a smile, “tomorrow then, perhaps.”

“Thanks,” he says.

“No need, you have always taken care of him,” She nods to herself. “I’m sure you always will.”

Her eyes are striking, more human than most of the Galra he’s met, he’s not sure if she’s always been wise or if she left the Quantum Abyss with more wisdom than Keith has revealed. When he mentions it to Keith later, he only says that she is “not young, Shiro,” though even he admits he doesn’t know how old she is.

 

Their relationship changes slowly, but they soon find themselves Shiro’s bed exclusively, they kiss hold each other and stay close together while they sleep. It’s a comfort and a luxury for Shiro not to be alone.

One night Keith admits to having had a crush on Shiro when he was younger, laughing at it now. Shiro admits that their age difference might bother some people. Keith says he’s not sure how old he is, with Voltron’s disappearance and the Quantum abyss, it’s been eight or nine years since he left earth on the cusp of adulthood for a human. He also relays his issue on Shiro’s age.

“Well, I’m not sure if we count from when your body was born, or when you came together or if we add all your earth and human years to your clone years? Maybe just your earth birthdays that you celebrated?”

“Well, I’m born on a leap day in a leap year, so I don’t think I’ve had very many of those at all.”

Keith grins an infectious grin and leaps up to straddle Shiro in Shiro’s makeshift bed. “Oh? I either forgot, or didn’t know that.”

“I don’t think it matters that much Keith, what two consenting adults do with each other behind closed doors,” Shiro admits.

“Can I kiss you then?” Keith asks, leaning over to be precariously balanced across Shiro’s chest, his mouth almost touching Shiro’s.

“Please,” Shiro whispers, his lips brushing against Keith’s. The tone has changed completely, and Shiro knows that he wants Keith, wants him so badly, wants to touch and know him. He has never missed his right arm so much as when he reaches up with only his left to cradle the back of Keith’s neck, to draw him in. He lets his mouth fall open in a sigh, and he moans softly when Keith presses his tongue up against Shiro’s in an invitation. Shiro chases Keith’s tongue back with his own when he retreats. Keith mouth is hot like the fire in his bones, he wants more this time. He gasps as Keith breaks away, moving to kiss down his neck, more teeth than tongue, more bite than bark. Keith leaves him dizzy with the attention.

Keith sits up to balance himself again, and the action brushes him against Shiro, Shiro knows that all the attention has him growing hard beneath his clothes, he gasps at the sensation and Keith smirks and lets his weight settle over Shiro’s thighs. His hands push at the edge of Shiro’s shirt, fingers trailing feather soft over the fabric, but he’s being a tease and he doesn’t move his hips again, instead focusing on tugging with enough insistence on Shiro’s shirt that Shiro knows what he wants before he speaks. “Shirt off,” Keith says, and the teasing lilt to his mouth doesn’t even waiver. Shiro surges up to meet him, his chest against Keith’s, but he’s using his arm to stay upright and he is not above asking for help.

“I’ll need your help for that,” Shiro says, his tongue reaching out to lick a line from Keith’s collarbone to earlobe. “If you’d like me to stay here, underneath you, you’ll have to lend me a hand. Maybe two.”

Keith’s laugh comes out breathy and he nearly rolls his eyes. “You’re horrible,” he says, but the effect is lost with his soft expression, his hands already reaching to tug Shiro’s shirt up and over his head. The shirt falls around Shiro’s supporting wrist and Shiro uses his strength to push his hips up where Keith’s hips are waiting. Keith moans loudly and lets his eyes fall shut, so Shiro does it again for good measure.

“Oh,” Keith says, and then he near drawls the world “Fu-ck.” His voice catches on the end of the word and Shiro is reminded briefly that Keith was raised the the deep south. He kisses Keith again and then drags him down with him, pressing up into him with a half a mind to hear him curse again, he isn’t disappointed. “Fuck,” he moans, and then his mouth returns to Shiro’s, letting him swallow his own curses when Keith grinds himself down on Shiro.

The urgency, the intensity, he thinks must be from Keith, because he’s always known sex to be soft, kind. This is a challenge and Keith wields command and demand, it’s give and take of a different kind entirely. Keith’s hands are all over his chest, his mouth insistently placing kisses that get wetter and lower as he moves down. He doesn’t pay any attention to Shiro’s scars, Shiro can almost pretend he doesn’t have any. Keith’s hands play on the edge of Shiro’s pants, his jaw brushing against the bulge in his pants, more grateful than ever that they took their armor off before hand.

“Please, Keith,” he groans, and Keith lifts his head, he’s not even sure what he’s asking for, anything, anything Keith is willing to give him. “What do you want?” Keith almost purrs, “I want to hear you ask.”

“Oh god,” and it’s frustrating that Keith is laying carefully still and Shiro is losing all his composure and he hasn’t even lost his pants. “Please, anything you are willing to give.”

Keith smiles a real smile, and he pushes himself up to kiss Shiro softly. “Cute Shiro, but not overly helpful.”

He’s graceful as a cat, one hand undoing the button on Shiro’s pants, touching the skin there, being a tease, still placing light kisses to the corner of Shiro’s mouth. “For instance, I could leave your pants on, grind up against you and see if I can get you to come without my hands or mouth at all.”

“Oh God,” Shiro moans, he swears Keith is just being a tease because he can.

“Second option, I take off your pants, take your cock in hand, and give you the best handjob in your life.”

“Yes, Please, Keith-I,” and here Keith puts an emphasis on his point by letting the hand that has now undone his fly rest over his hard dick and give it a light squeeze, causing Shiro to shudder and beg all over again.

“But you haven’t even heard option three,” Keith is now absolutely smirking.

Shiro doesn’t have anything to lose but his pants, “Okay, I’ll bite,” and Keith is now looking smug as hell and Shiro be damned if it isn’t the most appealing expression Keith could possibly sport. “What’s option three?”

Keith’s grin is back in full force, as wicked as ever. “I blow your dick, and probably your mind while I’m at it.”

“Fuck, Keith.” Shiro says. He picks option three.

 

Shiro’s not sure how he ended up completely naked while Keith is fully dressed, but he finds as always, Keith is true to his word. Shiro’s exhausted and his mind is truly blown and all he wants is to drift off to sleep. He offers to return the favour, but Keith smiles shyly and decines, and it’s a huge contrast to the man who was confidently sucking him off, begging him to come for him, swallowing like it’s not the first time he’s done this, and its hits Shiro. It’s probably the first time he’s done this.

“I wanted to do this for you Shiro, you’re exhausted, rain check for when you’re rested, Okay?” Keith is still smiling, unguarded, and Shiro wants to ask if he really is the first, but decides it doesn’t matter, and that it can probably wait until they are rested and cleaned up anyway.

Reality catches up with them and the next time Shiro spends the night with Keith, he’s shaking with fear instead of pleasure, trying to absorb the fact that he fell victim to a sleep that he wouldn’t wake from. He’s terrified that Keith and the other Paladins spent who knows how long floating in space, signing off with each other and hoping they wouldn’t starve to death. Mortality seems to weigh heavily on both of them and they cling to each other, both terrified for the others to think them weak, both too prideful to admit it. Shiro knows now that he loves Keith, but he can’t bring himself to say it for so many reasons, so he holds on to him instead and pretends he never has to let go.

 

The Paladins answer a distress call from that Krolia identifies as belonging to a Blade of Marmora, and that mortality hangs above them once more, but Keith is strong, he’s a fighter, he fought a druid and came back safe. He fought a druid as Shiro was once again taken over by their magic and held in the sphere of the Druid’s captivity. Shiro could say he’s never felt more useless, but it wouldn't be true. Shiro almost lets himself give into the idea that maybe, maybe things will get better, maybe he can love Keith and loving him won’t lead to them getting hurt.

Kolivan joins the group and like Krolia, he spares Shiro an extra glance, for they met at Keith’s trials and Shiro cuts an imposing figure when he wants to. Shiro isn’t sure if he’s forgiven him yet for letting Keith see an apparition of Shiro telling him to give in and give up. It may not be Kolivan’s fault, but it’s still something that happened, and Shiro remembers.

 

Shiro begins to distance himself almost unconsciously, almost as a self-preservation,  and though Keith spends all his nights in his bed, they don’t talk like they did before the frozen sleep and the abandoned base with the Druid. The air around them is suffocating with all the things that they don’t say to each other.

“Are we okay, Shiro?” Keith whispers, and Shiro was hoping that he was dreaming, because Keith putting those words out there means only one thing.

“Yeah Keith, we’re fine. We’ll always be okay,” Shiro says, even though he knows that they are anything but.

“You’ll tell me, right?” Keith asks, “If we aren’t?”

“Yes,” Shiro lies, because he’s heard this once before and he doesn’t know how to fix it, and worse he doesn’t know how to admit it. “Go back to sleep Keith.”

“Okay,” he says, exhaustion taking its toll. Shiro lays awake and tries to think of a way to make it better, but it’s not a cut and he can’t just slap a bandage on it. It’s not a burn he can salve or a wound he can stitch, but it hurts all the same.

 

Shiro takes to flying with the other paladins more often, even though he was frozen in sleep in Green, he’s enjoying flying around less with Keith and more with… well, everyone (anyone) else. He’s in Green again when they see the earth again, far earlier than they first thought would be possible. All of the distance closed by their strenghthed connection to their lions. Pidge even picks up a reply to her calls as they get close. She quickly realizes however that it’s not what she first thought. It’s not a reply at all, it’s a distress signal.

“To any beings to receive this message; Planet Earth has been overrun by the Galra, most of the citizens have been captured, those of us remaining are making our last stand. If you get this, please get word to Voltron. We need help.”

Shiro gazes morosely at his home, Earth is yet another battlefield, and he is missing the tools to fight.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” demands Keith, fire and fury echoing in his soul, and Voltron hums with resolve. Shiro tries to avoid thinking about how beautiful Keith is when he’s determined.

Keith pushes down on the controls and they are all systems go, and Shiro steels himself once again to face the being that has mocked him, and hurt him and now has invaded his home, and captured HIS people. Sendak has been in his nightmares, now he is in the flesh and the Champion he thought silent within him roars for retribution and reparation, he won’t rest until the threat is eliminated.

Whatever it takes.

Oh, and it _takes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still would love if somebody wants to edit this bad boy for me. 
> 
> Please note I added some tags. I'm still going to keep offering the characters all the respect they deserve even if they are barely in it, (don't expect any character or relationship bashing from me) still going to roll with cannon into season 8 and beyond (oh, once we're beyond though, then there's no canon to comply to but my own!) Still think I can tell it all in 10 chapters (probably.) Would still love to hear from you, dear reader, or even drop me a Kudos if you're shy and made it this far. 
> 
> So... if you've been keeping up with themes, the next chapter is titled Bravery. See you there.


	8. Bravery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My coffee was getting darker and darker. There wasn't any room for sweet things these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just gonna let this one speak for itself. Please do leave a comment or kudos, I do reply and I do appreciate it greatly.

H. Bravery

The day starts off like all the best days do. Adam awakens to press ‘snooze’ on the alarm just once before the coffee machine in his small Galaxy Garrison apartment is alerting him that the coffee is ready. It’s a work day and not any special occasion so there is no call for anything more sophisticated than a house blend with enough cream to turn the coffee to the colour of a cappuccino. He’s given up on adding sugar to his coffee, these days he’s anything but sweet and giving up the sugar feels a little more than symbolic. Adam is working on finding who he is outside of his relationship with Shiro. Meanwhile, Shiro is working on being the Man on the Moon, just not their moon.

Awake with the fresh kick of caffeine, it’s down to the simulator before class. He might not be actively piloting anything official right now, but he keeps his skills sharp. Anyone who knows Adam at all could find him simply by the time of day as he is true creature of habit. He completes the simulator easily but without cutting corners for speed or points and stares far too long at the scoreboard. Shiro is at the top, Keith only a few points below, Adam suspects Keith could usurp the score nowadays but is leaving it there for some reason or another, although he can’t say why. An odd sense of respect perhaps? Some sort of tribute maybe?

“Sir,” his thoughts are interrupted by Iverson. “May I speak with you in private? It’s important.”

Iverson’s face is drawn, his brow is tight, and Adam knows his day is just about to take a turn for the worst. “I have a class to teach in a half hour-” his own brow beginning to furrow, he knows it’s likely an order, phrased in a polite way.

“I’ve already found somebody to cover,” Adam sits up just a little straighter, Iverson has his full attention. “Lead the way, Commander.”

The walk from the simulation room to the office feels endless and daunting, Iverson’s shoes echoing in the hallway, the day too young for the youth to be up and about yet. “Please, sit.”

He sits, patient and worried, but his heart remains steadfast. Iverson sighs deeply, and then the floodgates open and the news is staggering.

“I’m telling you this out of respect and also because technically you are listed as next of kin, but what I am about to tell you will never leave this room, and no matter what, you will never discuss it with anyone including me, ever again.”

Adam is helpless to stop this moment in time, this moment where he knows that is about to get very, very bad. “I understand.”

Iverson is giving him a look that could be considered both stern and sympathetic. The commander is sliding across a piece of paper across the desk. Adam’s heart is lurching at the sight of the underlined words across the top.

Confidentiality Agreement.

“I will tell you everything, but I need you to sign at the bottom and understand, the consequences on acting upon this information or letting anyone else know would be severe. You are only getting this information because of your status within the Garrison.”

Adam signs anyway, his whole life is at the Garrison, his box of treasures and all of his secrets, what’s one more? He’s always been good at playing it close to the chest anyway, and now he _needs_ to know.

“Shiro is gone Adam,” Iverson starts. If his heart was lurching at the thought of what could have happened, it’s breaking with the news of what has. “There was an accident on kerberos and I’ll be honest, Takashi Shirogane, Commander Holt and Officer Holt are MIA presumed dead.”

“Did she crash?”

“No,” Iverson rubs his forehead. “She landed alright, but then the whole ship goes off the radar and all contact was lost. There isn’t a trace left, the presumption of the technical team is a possible ship malfunction may be responsible, maybe something more sinister though I doubt it. I’m going to remind you of the confidentiality agreement here as we can’t afford to lose the public’s trust and funding, I’m only telling you any of this because Shiro listed you as next of kin and didn’t change or update it before he left for Kerberos. If you weren’t with the Garrison, I couldn't tell you at all.” Iverson’s sighs are getting progressively heavier as the news goes from bad to worse. “That’s not the official story.”

Adam almost doesn’t want to know, he knows a look of pity when he sees one, he gave enough of them to Shiro when he was cringing in agony to recognize the expression with a painful familiarity.

“You know, that Shiro was barely cleared to fly, well the official story is that nobody knew how badly the nerve damage had progresses. He had--” and Adam is not ready for past terms just yet, _has, he has--_ “a tremor in his hands. Officially he crashed on the surface of Kerberos.”

“Officially; it’s pilot error Adam W-” Adam’s head falls into his hands, defeat ringing in his ears. He doesn’t even hear the rest of Iverson’s sentence, interrupting with “After everything he did, everything he gave to the Garrison, this is what he gets in return. Nobody will remember him for who he was. Just the failure he wasn’t. God this isn’t fair.”

“That’s not fair,” Iverson is reaching down to his level. “You can’t tell anyone what he didn’t do, but you can remember him Adam, for who he was.”

Adam is not in the mood to be charitable, his words are biting. “He was the Golden Boy, the Poster Child, the Star Pilot and I know it. Has anybody told Keith?.”

“No, and we can’t. He’s a hothead to the core Adam, I trust you, I know you won’t break the agreement and I know that you deserve to know, you more than anyone, and I’m sorry. It wasn’t my decision to announce it like this but we need the public more than ever with the funding to military being less and less in this time of us is on and peace. There is a call for exploration but not for . We can’t afford for the Garrison to go down for this, it’s one person’s reputation or the entire Galaxy Garrison, and that includes you Adam.”

“Fine,” Adam says, the speech simply felt like coal for the fire burning in his heart, the wheels of rebellion turning. “Have it your way, but I need you to do something for me.”

“What are you asking?” Iverson is phrasing it so it hangs in the room as a request instead of the threat it really could be.

“Reinstate my active status as a pilot,” Adam says. “Effective immediately, I am ready to fly.”

If Adam thought his action was full of dramatics, it’s nothing compared to what he hears happened with Keith. He supposes it could be the part where he knows Shiro didn’t do anything wrong, but he suspects it wouldn’t matter to Keith. Shiro really is -was- the kid’s real life hero, he wouldn’t understand why the Garrison doesn’t want it to get out, and with the gag order in place, it’s not like he can tell him anyway. He’s sure Shiro would appreciate that he didn’t leave the hoverbike behind.

The biggest change is his pilot status, he wasn’t kidding all that time ago on the roof when he told Shiro his dream was to lead a elite team of pilots, working with them in equal measure and cadence, dominating the sky. Iverson gives him permission to start assembling a group, ten men and women, too many for a specialized covert team, too few for a squadron. The first person he picks up is Wildcat, her first name is Greta. She has three kids, a stay at home husband and is soft and caring until shit hits the fan. He picks her because she has the best real time flight record for transportation of bio-goods. She’s fast and she’s flown in more than just a simulator.

On Wildcat’s suggestion he requests a cadet that just graduated, Fenrir he tags his callsign. Turns out he’s Wildcat’s cousin, and he’s an absolute klutz in everything in life except flying. Adam cringes through his explanation of black holes, can’t believe how bad his aim is and is halfway considering writing off Greta's ability to objectively judge Garrison talent (especially if they are family) when he gets the man in a flight simulator, only to watch him fly an entire asteroid belt with no hits. He can fly around the simulated Earth as fast as the capacity of any simulated aircraft, “The wolf who swallowed the world, you know.”

His smile is quiet and Adam takes him on. The next few years bring less excitement, he builds his team, most of them more or less out of respect and seniority. Everything is just as he thought about on the roof with Shiro before Kerberos, Adam is no shining star. He’s incredibly good, but not infallible, and he’s not the Garrison poster boy. Most of his team is unremarkable but competent. The last pilot to join gets her callsign from the drink she offers him when she tries to hit on him at a company event. She sits down right across from him at the table he and Greta are sitting at and runs her eyes from his shoes to his head with no shame whatsoever.

“I love a man in glasses,” she says. She pushes one of the drinks she brought with her across to him. “Screwdriver?”

Greta bubbles with laugher and Adam lifts one of his eyebrows, delivering his message in the most deadpan voice he can so as not to encourage her. “I’m gay.”

“God fucking dammit.”

She ends up joining his group of pilots, her spitfire nature and uncanny aim proving to be an asset. Greta casually suggests she take the callsign ‘Screwdriver’ because she’s never be able to remember her as anything else, needless to say, it’s a moment she never lives down.

The next few years bring very little excitement, Adam enjoys being among the ranks of Senior Pilots and earns respect from the young and upcoming, he works a little with the youth and gets to have a greater circle of people that nod to him in the hallways.

There’s the cocky youngster James Griffin, who he partially gets to know because the rumors in the grapevine say two things about him that Adam finds interesting. One, Keith decked him in the face, and two, he’s incredible in the simulator, on a one man mission to beat Keith’s scores. Adam slyly finds himself in a spot to slide into the spot of mechanic on his simulator. He likes playing the mechanic, and he’s good enough at it that he gets to see if the rumors are true firsthand.

“Think you are up to this? I’m the best pilot in my grade, top of my class.” James says, and Adam knows that he might be the top of his class by effort, but he’s only the best pilot by default, he sat in on Keith’s simulator runs too, and he’s going to hold this kid to his boast.

“Ready when you are,” Adam says. He follows protocol and is completely professional. The kid is good, he’s really good, but like Adam, he’s not up there with Shiro’s scores, or Keith’s even. “You’re good James, but you’re not the best,”

“Who do you think you are? What do you know, mechanic?” James sneers

“Adam W-”

“I didn’t ask for your name, I meant, how would _you_ know? You’re a mechanic,” James’ interruption is incredibly rude and defensive so Adam just keeps talking over it.

“-Senior pilot, five years flight instructor, your commanding officer,” his left eyebrow is raised just slightly, and the James looks deflated, his ego properly stomped on.

“Oh,” he says, his voice smaller and quieter. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Sometimes it’s not about what you say, but what you don’t say, don’t assume anything of anyone, don’t assume that you’re going to be flying the simulator forever, you are good but you aren't a one man army, you are going to need to learn to work with everyone and anyone. Next time somebody checks in with you on the Sim, maybe ask their name, flight experience and if you feel bold, what they can bring to your ship.”

“Oh, like, what they are good at?” He cocks his head, understanding. Adam thinks that if he can just learn to listen, he could very well turn out to be something great. He hasn’t quite left his teaching days behind, and it’s the kind of lesson he needs to learn now, when he’s young. He only wishes he could have taught Keith, but that was too dangerous a line of thought to follow.

“Yes,” he says patiently, his voice echoing with kindness. “And you should offer a bit of yourself up in return. You never know when it might save your life.”

The next time he sits in on one of James’s runs, there is a willowy cadet flying co pilot on one of the more advanced missions.

She nods to him, “Cadet Leifsdottir, pilot, special interests tactical and analytical.”

He smiles at her and glances over to James, glad he took his advice, “Nice to meet you.”

Adam doesn’t spend a lot of time with the cadets after that, there’s an incident where a few of them disappear and he hears Keith’s name on Admiral Sanda’s lips, so skips the rumor mill on this one and heads directly for Iverson’s office.

“If there was something to tell, you’d tell me right?”

“It’s nothing but a security breach, officer. Some of the cadets are missing, we think they may be with the former Cadet Keith, as allegedly Shiro’s hoverbike was at the scene. If you have any information on his whereabouts, we need to know. Trust me on this, we have one former cadet, three cadets and a fugitive of the Garrison out there, and we need to find them. So if I find out you are withholding information on me, there will be consequences.”

Adam doesn’t know where Keith has been since he left, he hasn’t seen him in the nearby town, hasn’t been informed by anyone where he is, and without Shiro, he privately thinks that if he didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be.  

“I only know that Keith grew up around here, I don’t know the details,” he says, because it’s true and it’s not enough to go on. Iverson seems to think it’s worth a shot and picks up his communicator to punch out a message. “I’ll get drones out there just in case you are onto something, you think of anything else, you report directly to me.”

“Yes, sir,” he leaves the office. There’s a officer standing outside, her face is tight and worried, but her expression is story. She’s muttering under her breath and fidgeting with his communicator. “Oh he is so dead,” she mutters, just loud enough to hear, “I’m gonna kill him, and then mom’s gonna kill him…”

“Veronica, get in here,” Iverson calls. Adam watches her put her communicator away, soothe out the wrinkles in her coat, and sees where her expression goes from fury to duty, _admirable_ , he thinks.

The Garrison never finds the missing cadets, he learns later that Veronica’s brother is among them, explaining her worry. They do find a shack out in the dessert by flying drones overhead and they send Veronica with a few cadets to scope out and retrieve the evidence there. They bring Adam in to verify that it was Shiro’s bike, but it’s a formality, they have the serial number and registration, he finds out that it’s partially so that they can seize the bike as Shiro’s for the Garrison as his status is still MIA presumed dead. It aches like a bitter taste and grating bones to Adam, all he has left of Shiro are the coffee mugs he gave him, the Garrison has his uniforms, his bike, his records, all of the real evidence of his life.

Veronica comes to his door the next day, and she asks him out on a casual date, but her eyes are haunted and when he feels compelled to meet her at the local dive bar anyway, the first thing that comes out of her mouth is “This isn’t a real date.”

“Well no,” Adam studies her over the rim of his glasses. “I’m gay after all.”

It might have been enough to make her crack a smile, any other day. Instead she leads right into it, retrieving a folder from her bag and telling him that none of this is to be repeated to anyone.

“Here’s the folder for the four missing cadets, belongings were found from a few of them in the shack, but there’s a few problems, as in things don’t add up.”

He gestures for her to continue, citing that his lips are sealed. Her notes are handwritten, as to not draw a lot of attention, they don’t look like anything official at all, mostly they look like cute doodles and diagrams.

“Well, there’s Keith, there’s Shiro’s bike and clear evidence he lived there, plus we found his birth certificate there in a locked box, listed with a father, no mother, but clear it’s his home, he’s been living there a while too, even if the place has no food.”

“There’s five sleeping settings set up, mostly on the floor or second room, so it’s not likely he was alone after the incident. Now we have my brother missing, along with…” She flips through her notes, “a cadet...Hunk, not sure if first or last name, it’s the only one listed here? Engineering cadet, Pidge Gunderson, here’s one of the spots where it gets weird. Pidge Gunderson exists entirely on paper, like there are school records and a social insurance number, and it looks totally normal, until you start digging and find that while all the paperwork checks out, the reference numbers check out but are empty. They are all recorded voicemail, when you start calling the schools or social services, there isn’t anything. Pidge Gunderson is a ghost.”

He’s reading the scribbled notes, listed as seventeen, five foot one, a hundred and eighteen pounds, “Do you have a picture?”

She slides a small print out toward him, it’s clearly a cadet ID photo and he almost drops it with a small gasp of recognition.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“This is… Matt, Matt Holt, what the fuck?”

“Like Matt Holt, son of Sam Holt and on the Kerberos mission? This is the picture for Pidge Gunderson, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Neither does Matt being listed as five foot one, he’s not short for his age, although this picture might not be that old either, he asks Veronica and she confirms that the picture is from the most recent crop of cadets, so it’s not him. “Look into the Holt family, but discreetly, top brass probably is already suspicious of this.”

“As far as they know and I’ve told them, these cadets vanished off the face of the earth and I have no idea the Pidge Gunderson might not be them, because this isn’t the part of the story where it gets weird.”

Adams not sure his heart can take this story getting any stranger, but he decides he can’t live with himself if he doesn’t know.

“There’s a board in that shack, covered with pictures, leading to a location and all focussed on finding something called Voltron. The board seems to suggest that Takashi Shirogane might be alive or at least they believed he was. We followed the board to the location, nothing but an empty cave filled with drawings of a Blue Lion and scorch marks. Our earth sciences guy confirmed that it was in a strange pattern but possible that an unauthorized ship left earth that night.”

“Oh, so that’s what Keith was doing all this time,” he mumbles into his hands. “Keith was looking for Shiro.”

“Honestly, I think he might have found him, there were at least five people in that house, Adam, they left suddenly and unexpectedly, they didn’t take anything or put anything away before they did. I know my brother was one of them and I want him back.”

He doesn’t ask how she knows, just like he doesn’t question his thoughts that the truth of Kerberos was never really disclosed to him. He almost wishes they never told him anything and he could have been like Keith, unwavering, but that’s not realistic at all. Shiro probably wouldn’t have wanted him to choose his career over his ex-fiance, especially when Shiro had already walked away from his fiance for his career.

“Okay,” he says. Facing the unimaginable fear and self loathing wasn’t going to be a good way to deal with it. What can you bring to the table, he thinks. “Look into the surveillance the night the Cadets disappear, be discreet, look into Pidge Gunderson and any information pertaining to the possible coverup behind Shirogane, cover it up with concern for your brother because at this point we can’t afford to get caught.”

She nods, “and you?”

“I have a commanding officer and a gag order to put pressure on.”

“Thanks for the date,” she says, she’s obviously very intelligent and very invested, he decides to trust her on this, because where once he held his trust with the Garrison, it doesn’t appear that they trust him enough to either keep him informed or not to be emotionally compromised.

“Keep me updated but don’t endanger yourself,” Adam fixes his glasses from sliding down the bridge of his nose. “Above all, approach this with caution, the Garrison is protective, they need to uphold their image to receive funding, there may be something to be said in not waking sleeping lions.”

Above all, Adam is practical, but the Garrison, is _ruthless._

The Garrison finds out that Pidge Gunderson is Katie Holt. The Garrison admits that they have the ship Shiro crash landed on, and they have to admit that Shiro may be alive in order to begin work reverse engineering the tech. They aren’t really able to power anything but the navigation system, and it’s too damaged to fly, but they don’t know that.

They don’t know who made the ship, or how Shiro came to have it, but it’s unofficial confirmation that They don’t find anything for several months, but it would be appropriate to say that the answers find them anyway. Sam Holt arrives bearing warning of the Galra, word of Voltron, and videos of the Paladins.

“Oh my god, Shiro’s been alive all this time, and Keith actually found him,” he’s drinking coffee, one sugar, but it still tastes too sweet.

Veronica invites him to come sit with her, “They have a video from Lance to, he’s still just as much of an idiot as ever, I can’t believe he’s one of this crazy deep space crew with Officer Shirogane.” She smiles, and then whispers “I wish I could tell my family.”

It’s not the only news for them though, In a meeting with senior officers and the commanders and even the admiral, Sam Holt explains that Shiro, Matt and the missing cadets are out there and alive. He explains the some of the secrets of the Universe, and how  if they were hoping to encounter intelligent life on Kerberos, they found it in a big way out there.

Intelligent life was the Altean Princess and the technologic advances and information she had gifted Commander Holt, he had plans upon plans, theories about theory. Intelligent life was in the form of a controlling galactic empire that were called the Galra. The Galra came complete with an Empire, although it seemed that their rule was spoty, and a mission to colonize and strip the resources off every planet they could land a ship on. The Galra that Commander Holt speaks of are a mess, with a third of their factions following Lotor, an unlikely ally to the Voltron Coalition, the rest of it being up in arms as to their leader.

The Altean Princess and the four rogues along with the fugitive seemed to be the key to the whole thing. Adam could hardly believe the talk of Voltron and a transforming ship made of five mechanical lions, but there is evidence before his eyes, and then in his hands.

Adam half wants to confront Sam and ask if Shiro is coming home, if he remembers him, but he feels like he threw that all away when he tried to ground a man made up of the sky. It was like trying a star down with a rope and hoping the light wouldn't go out or burn you. He had already been burned, and the more he thought about it, the more unwilling he was to pick at those cauterized wounds.

The first step is secrecy, they lockdown everything airtight, not even a rumour escaping. Commander Holt appears to be under house arrest with his wife Colleen. The Garrison can feel the danger closing in though and Iverson is on Sam Holt’s side, although he can’t turn the tide of the entire board of directors and their fear of losing their funding. Instead of appealing to the public and letting those outside the Garrison be informed, they instead construct a series of phases for the protection and preservation of Earth.

The first wave of ships for defence begin manufacture, the Garrison keeps a tight lid on what's going on, afraid the panic will spread to the masses. The ships are called MFE:P1, and they are a prototype model using existing Earth technology with the Altean mumbo jumbo that Commander Holt has been able to make sense of.

Adam and the other nine pilots are assigned to one of these units. Wildcat writes the names of her kids onto the arm of the chair.

“Just so I know who I fight to come home too,” Adam doesn’t have anyone like that.

He puts a few tiny star stickers in the shape of Leo on the side of the console. Screwdriver puts a minibar in her unit, and the Garrison almost kicks her off the team, but they don’t have the manpower to replace her, so instead she gets off with a warning. The prototypes become the ships, the army the pilots, but they are just a preliminary to what is to come. Phase two begins construction on a massive carrier unit, sleek and noticeably more Altean, it is made to house a massive crew, transporters, fighters and if necessary, five Voltron Lions.

The theoretical crew that gets assigned to this massive ship is as full of variety as the Garrison can offer. She needs engineers, technical experts, data analysts, pilots and of course a captain. That honor currently goes to Commander Holt, but it’s only in theory as the ship begins basic construction.

Phase 3 begins with the construction and reinforcement of the Garrison shield, meant to withstand a zyforge cannon, (that Adam can only imagine) the shield proves much easier than the airship to power as their existing and newly built generators are able to handle the weight of the top brass’s demand for extra safety, but it’s only in theory, they haven’t tested or even ran it yet.

When all is quiet, Adam takes his prototype jet to the skies, if this is the prototype, he can hardly imagine the real thing, she’s fast, sleek and handles far smoother than anything he has ever had the luxury of flying. He feels the freedom that comes with being able to take with the sky and in a rare moment of empathy feels what Shiro must have thought he was losing.

Veronica tracks him down in the mess hall as Phase four begins to get underway, with her is an Officer of their rank that he has never really gotten to know.

“Adam, this is Curtis, he’s involved with the IGF ATLAS project and also wanted somebody with an opinion worth listening to.”

Curtis is tall, handsome with dark skin and bright blue eyes that are too sharp for how young he looks. “I’m glad you think my opinion is worth listening to, Veronica,” Adam directs his comment at Veronica, her expression clear; _don't push it_ , before turning to Curtis, “ask away.”

“Sir,” Curtis sits directly across from him as Veronica takes a spot at his right. “It occurs to us that you have some insight into the cadets, having taught them in the past  and it’s been noticed that you still consider to unofficially mentor or be on friendly terms with some of them.” Adam almost raises his eyebrow, Curtis is military to the core it seems, another heart working like clockwork. “I’ll get to the point. Commander Holt is beginning a project for the MFE fighter units, a better but more costly variation of the previous MFE P1s and P2s.

We are in need of a Cadet that can lead a team of four up to an entire squadron comfortably, the team will be made of the highest scored cadet pilots.” It’s unsaid but Adam understands his phrasing perfectly, four is likely as many units as the Garrison can currently build with the power sources they have right now, the plan is to turn it into a squadron in time. They are probably looking for a Cadet because the older pilots can’t be spared for something this experimental. Not when the prototype units are already successful and in the sky.

“We want the whole team to be cadets, young enough to be highly adaptable with extremely advanced and unfamiliar tech. These new ships are more extreme in their Altean origin than any of the others have been yet.”

“Except the IGF Atlas,” Adam points out. Curtis to his part doesn’t waver, even though it’s nearly voiced as a challenge, he’s sizing the other man up, knowing the cadet he sends if going to be on the front lines eventually if conflict comes to call.

“Yes,” Curtis confirms, “but we can’t count on a ship that can’t fly.”

Veronica chooses now to speak up; “These are very promising designs. The ships can be customized to an extent to meet the needs of their individual pilots. We are just looking for an ace in the hole.”

“James Griffon,” he says. “He he follows the rules, plays it close to the chest and listens to instruction.” He’s also a grumpy little shit, but it would be unfair not to include how he’s grown over the years.

“He can lead a team, but he can also put one together. I suggest you consider some of his choices for the other pilots that you need,” he says.

“Understood,” he says. He looks like he could ask a thousand other questions to go with this one but Adam nods a polite dismissal and almost never finds out what Curtis wanted to know.

Curtis is determined though discreet when he manages to corner Adam after a meeting with Commander Holt about recruiting the right Cadets to fly the MFEs, the materials where all here now after all, they just needed to begin assembly.

“I had a question for you,” Curtis says, and it feels like they are about to pick up where they left off before.

“Ask away,” Adam says, his voice belaying his weariness.

“You knew Takashi Shirogane when he was here right? On Earth. You knew him better than anyone according to the paperwork.”

“What paperwork?” Adam asks, he didn’t expect this. He can feel an ache in his chest at the mention of Shiro.

“You are still listed as next of kin,” Curtis’ voice isn’t harsh or unkind, he’s just stating a fact. It’s the same tone used to nonchalantly remark upon the weather.

Adam’s voice is weary, but he find the words anyway. “I was his fiance, but I’m not the one who knows him best. That would be Keith.”

“Keith isn’t here though, and this is mostly the Garrison asking, but do you think Shirogane will come back?”

“No, the Shiro I knew was near crippled and chronically ill and still went out to the stars, is still alive despite all odds and still will always be at home in the sky I think. He’ll come in to save the day, Shiro the Hero we called him, and he hated it.” Adam hates how it all sounds so personal, like the question should be hard to answer but he can feel the divide. “I really can’t say though. I knew who he was when he was here with us, but the Shiro that’s out there in the stars, I won’t pretend to know or answer for.”

“That is a fair assessment, thank you for your honesty.” Curtis nods, more to himself than to Adam, satisfied for now with his answer.

Curtis’ question is like an itch under the scab of Shiro though, he wants to know who he is now and the only person who can really answer the question in any capacity is Sam Holt.

He finds Commander Holt under a mountain of paperwork with his wife, Colleen, on her way out. “Don’t keep him too long Adam,” she says. “We may be under house arrest but I still expect my husband home in time for dinner.” He doesn’t know exactly how she knows, but if she is anything like Matt, then he doesn’t want to know.

“Ah, Officer Adam,” Commander Holt greets him. “What can I do for you?”

“This is going to be difficult,” Adam takes a seat, still uncertain why he feels this is necessary. He knows though that the uncertainty will eventually eat him alive and if this goes down badly, well, he’s always rather have known and hurt than have not known. “You saw Shiro rather recently, and where there at the initial incident. How is he?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t come to me sooner to be honest,” Commander Holt begins. “I know you were close, once.”

“The truth is I think it’s best to start at the beginning.” His voice is weary as he moves over to the small counter in his office that houses a coffee pot and a few ceramic mugs. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black,” the days for sweetness, stealing Shiro’s coffee mugs and a few kisses aside, were over _._

Commander Holt sits across from him once more, pushing the steaming mug of black coffee his way. “It begins on Kerberos, when the Galra took us. We were separated very quickly, but Matt was with me briefly at one point after. I knew Shiro was a slave in a gladiatorial arena, I know he came out with a lot of scars. The Galra called him their Champion, and then one day he disappeared, escaped. From there I didn’t see them again until I was rescued from the Galra by Voltron.

Shiro though, he had a strong and happy way about him, but he had a rather large scar across his face and the Galra had taken one of his arms, his right one. They replaced it with this incredible technology that could do a lot of useful things but it also has a lot of problems too, being Galra designed. I bet we could do better,” the Commander seems to realize he’s rambling. “I digress I only really caught up with him for a moment, but he leads the team, he commands respect and he looks happy enough.”

“That’s great,” Adam sighs, all the fight in him slipping away. “I just wanted him to be happy. All I ever wanted was for him to be happy.”

“It’s not perfect, they are out there on the front lines of a ten thousand year old war with a handful of allies. They have some planets swayed, but there will come a time when they need us to stand with Voltron and I think Shiro could be the man that makes that happen.” He pauses to catch his breath. He doesn’t say that Voltron has been missing for a year now, that Matt hasn’t contacted them with any news, he holds out hope, its admirable.

Adam doesn’t have much to say, a little shocked at the urgency and bluntness that Commander Holt is approaching the problem with. “And Adam,” he says, softer this time, personal even. This is Sam speaking, not the commander. “I didn’t ask, but there wasn’t a tremor in his hand when I saw him most recently. He didn’t appear to be taking any medication for it either.”

“Oh,” said Adam. “You’ve given me lots to think about. Thanks for the talk.”

“Of course, anytime,” Sam replies. Adam slips the request for a prosthetic right arm into Sam’s mailbox the next day. It’s anonymous, _I know we can do better,_ he thinks, and this is only _just in case._  

Shiro got to fly among the stars, he got his dream, it didn’t break him, but Adam doesn't know what his own dream is. Keeping Shiro here would have broken him. Adam thinks that maybe it was for the best that Shiro gets to go be a hero, a real one for lots of different peoples and planets, if some of his pain was gone. He gets time to think on it, weighing the pros and cons until he comes to reason that they were both young and opinionated and that staying with Shiro or leaving would have not likely changed anything, but the closure might have saved him some heartbreak. If it wasn’t flying, it would have been _something_ that they couldn’t live with. It’s easier to not think too hard about what might have been and just focus on the here and now. Thank god he didn’t end up like Keith, always, always waiting, even when the whole world believed Shiro was dead, that kind of illogical willingness to be hurt by another person was honestly beyond him.

The truth is and will always be that Adam loved Shiro, may always hold a small candle for him in his mechanical, wind-up heart. Adam though, isn’t meant for fantasy, so he lets it go, and perhaps, for the first time since the stir that Shiro had been alive all this time, realizes exactly what he felt. Guilt, at not believing that he was alive despite all of the odds. Reverence, at the lengths Shiro would go to fly across the night sky.

He lets the fantasy go, and with acceptance comes clarity. Adam won’t be eaten alive by the guilt not struck dumb by Shiro’s impossible circumstances. So he vows not to overthink it.

Overthinking it it though would be next to impossible when Commander Holt proves the whole world right. The IGF Atlas is technically completed though she still doesn’t have the power to get off the ground. Commander Holt takes action into his own hands, and then it’s the Garrison, all fighting to see the television broadcast, in awe or in panic.  It’s a plea to the world, to step up and help complete the IGF Atlas, it’s a moment to acknowledge the cadets that left, and for Veronica’s family that isn’t in the Garrison, it’s the first time they really know what happened to their son, their brother.

Adam recognizes the young faces in the video, but there isn’t anything from Shiro, or Keith. Everyone around him is either panicking at the unauthorized call or cheering silently in the revelation they might get some outside help.

There is no message from Shiro, like there is nothing left for him on Earth, and although he knew, all this time, that it was over, he now feels it. He feels it and he knows that it’s over.

The Holt’s askance for help works in their favor, the world steps up to the plate. To be honest, it’s too little, far too late. The MFEs and their young pilots are ready for action, and then the action comes crashing down with one very terrible word.

“Galra,” they call themselves and with their arrival, Adam’s world goes from a theoretical war that they are preparing for, to a call echoing for pilots to get to their ships.

“All personnel, proceed to your command stations immediately,” echoes through the Garrison, _this is not a drill,_ Adam fills in. The ships are grey and hardened, the day was sunny and beautiful and it feels wrong that it’s not raining or windy, that they can just descend chaos without the sky darkening. The reports start coming in, they are not just attacking the Garrison, they are attacking all of Earth at once.  

The protocol BETA 5 is called, and Adam is already on the tarmac. His heart is pounding rapidly in his chest, but his voice is calm and steady.

“You heard the man, we’re up.”

Adam is a solid force in a storm, relying on all of his training, his own ability as a pilot. He gets to be Adam without Shiro, even if for a moment, Adam free of Shiro. They fire on the Galra Airships with reason, and then the panic sets in with the realization, “Our weapons have no effect!”

They cannot hit the ships with what they have, and the purple beams of destruction start streaking through the sky, uncaring what they hit or don’t hit in their deadly wake. “Evasive maneuvers,” that is Fenrir, ever the level head in a fight, this is Adam's’ team of ten incredible pilots against the only Alien army earth has ever seen.

“Wildcat’s gone, Titan’s not responding,” Wildcat with her names on the side of the chair, the people she won’t be coming home too. Two down. eight are left. These are his comrades, this is his fleet. This is his ship.

“What would you call your theoretical fleet, oh mighty Captain,” Shiro laughed, his right hand clutched Adam’s left, leaving Adam’s right hand to sketch the stars above them. There’s nothing he loved more that drawing all the constellations in the sky, Shiro at his side.

“That’s easy,” he chuckled. “The Garrison will call us whatever they decide too.”

Shiro smiled teasingly before reaching up to kiss the corner of his mouth. “You are no fun,” His dark hair framed his face in the moonlight, serene and dark and beautiful. “What would you call your ship then? What would be your call-sign if you got your dream team come true?”

“Oh, now that’s easier,” he holds up his paper, the stars are roughly sketched out to make a lion. It only is really visible in the desert in spring, when all things are young and new. “Perfect,” Shiro replied, and for a moment, everything was.

His ship, call-sign Leo, dips down to avoid the beams. Then it’s two more, four left.

“I can’t shake these things, they have me on target lock!”  Storm is yelling, her voice shaken, Adam grits his teeth and she’s gone.

He barely registers the Garrison report, he hasn’t processed the losses of the people on his team. “Another Galra fleet,” they reform formation, but it’s useless to see what they are up against, what Shiro has been up against this whole time. “Approaching.”

The beam runs through the port side of their formation; two.

“I’ve got target lock,” Screwdriver screams, diving in front of Adam. “No!” he calls, futile useless; one.

The beams look violet as they streak through the air, but the explosion when they hit the front of his ship  is blood orange, Adams hands grasp the controls, eyes wide, reaching

  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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